Predator and Prey
by aragonite
Summary: Patrick Troughton's Birthday tribute, using one of his all-time favorite monsters-the Androgums! Be warned. If you know what Androgums are you know what you are getting into! Too bad the Androgums only THINK they know what they're dealing with when they invite the Hyper Hobo of Hyperspace over for dinner... New Chapter!
1. Chapter 1

**Predator and Prey**

Summary: Tribute to Patrick Troughton, who has a birthday on March 25th. The Androgums were one of his favorite monsters.

This will read as much as possible the feeling of the old series. I tried to imagine Frazer Hines' voice, narrating as I wrote.

* * *

**Part 1:**

The _Feathered Sun_ was a standard Third Zone utilitarian, budgetized and efficient hyperspace-drive block of Metal in Space. Outside the Zone, neighbors and detractors shared in the combined criticism of the soulless architecture that went into the work, but the Zone ignored the scoffs. They made do with what they had…or they went without. Life to them was exactly that simple, and occasionally bitter.

_The Feathered Sun_ was a Robot Ship because the Zone had precious little surplus in the way of talented pilots and ship-captains; there had been a few too many wars, and far, far too many epic famines and loss of resources with the wearisome battering with the Dominators and other territorial giants. They owed money—and lots of it—to outside interests such as the Trated Collective, the Voraxx, the political vacuum-feeders stepping in to take the place of the War Lords, and others too shadowy and numerous to mention. They were strong enough to hold their own against the Cybermen (who currently had no interest in the region), but they would never hold up to Daleks…yet.

Most Zoners capable of flying were still training the next generation up in flight schools, or they lived shattered, retired, and wired up to cyborg augmentations. The expense of living, flawed beings at the helm was too much so Control Deck was converted into a supercooled Control Room.

_The Feathered Sun_ was injured.

Ordinarily capable of high performance on its supply runs across Mutter's Spiral, _the Feathered Sun_ had been sticking to its usual flight program through the Kirkwood Gap of the Minyos System. This was a commonplace flight path; since the awful business between Gallifrey and Minyos, the latter's planet had been politely left abandoned; a long-dead char of radioactive waste as a cautionary monument against Time Lord Altruism that encouraged too much technological growth, too fast, among non-Gallifreyans.

Young in her success with time travel, Gallifrey had been confident and drunk on the power of her new abilities, and arrogant from successes in the Great Vampire War. Minyans paid the price for being Gallifrey's friend: they drove out the Time Lords and burnt themselves up in nuclear fires for which they had been unprepared.

Minyos now spins alone in space, a tomb of a planet known for its amazing beauty under the telescopes of sentient beings, for her surface reflects all known spectrum of light.

She is beautiful because the nuclear bombs rendered her crust into reflective glass and her seas a permanent vapour of poison cloud.

Her planet had no visitors; there was no reason to use the planet but the empty space where thousands of ships had once sailed was still useful as a shortcut between the Charbydian and Basilian/Trician systems.

It was to employ this space as such a shortcut that an uncalculated maneuver into the ship's programmed flight plans erupted into emergency: a pulse of gravity from the dead Minyos had co-incided with the gravity pull off a passing planetestimal that _ordinarily_ would have an easily compensated-for differential.

If it hadn't been for the excess mass tacked on to the planetestimal because it had just been struck by a passing pinhole.

A pinhole that wasn't supposed to exist.

_The Feathered Sun_ shuddered under a chain of impacts as fragments of dirty rock and radioactive ice punched through layer after layer of safety shields. A fateful impact struck the language-relay between the ship's brain and the Hyperdrive Data input, creating a two-second time-lapse between MESSAGE SENT and MESSAGE RECIVED. She stumbled off-course for less than two seconds, but two seconds in space is enough for thirty lifetimes; before the course's corrected calculations could translate to the Hyperdrive, the craft entered a slow spin out of her original plan and tipped into the outermost gravity tides that would pull them further into the system.

The _Sun's_ hyperdrive was a workhorse, capable of continuing without complaint. It was not capable of dancing.

The spin grew worse as the intercommunications systems onboard flew into a storm of terror. Emergency lights shut off, the compu-nervous systems attempting to conserve power and re-correct the course before all life on board could be erased.

The crew of the _Sun_ knew it was hopeless, but they also knew life was never a guarantee anyway; they hastened to their pre-assigned posts and manually overrode electrical safeties and locks. The effect was instantaneous: Storage holds devoid of life were instantly turned off; their power and atmosphere was siphoned into the living portions of the decks. Trained crewmen in pressure suits dove into the claustrophobic spaces between the skin of the hull and the outermost rooms, using brute muscles to lock down chamber after chamber. Like most cargo ships, _the Sun_ had her most expendable cargo in the rooms closest to vacuum: at the slightest breach the less-profitable cargo would spill out. It also had the added advantage of distracting any potential attacking pirates who might be the cause of the hull breach.

_The Sun's_ extraneous power reserves fluttered once, as another pulse racketed through the craft's skeleton. The Control Room appeared to gasp onscreen, as normal atmosphere began to leak through the weakening seals.

* * *

Amidst the flurry, a second ship slipped through the ancient warzone, heading straight for the foundering _Sun_ as it death-throed its way to an agonizing meltdown against the surface of the still-radioactive Minyos. It was so much smaller than _the Feathered Sun_ it was ridiculous; a tiny terrier trying to save a drowning ox. Under most scanners it barely showed at all. It was a deep blue, box-shaped, with a strange glowing light on its top with even stranger-looking alien letters writ across its front. It glowed under the long-wave scanners that employed some of the more obscure radiation-patterns.

At close range the tiny ship spun, dipped, and wheeled with a peculiar if inexplicable grace through a deadly arcade of orbiting mass in the Kirkwood Gap. Anyone witnessing this ethereal dance would be hard-pressed to decide if the ship was driven by a madman, a fool, a genius, a maestro musician or all of the above; some of the maneuvers went against the grain of common sense—or perhaps transcended ordinary dull arithmetic. She seemed to _anticipate_ impacts before they came—twice in the blizzard of rock and metal and space-junk she vanished altogether only to appear on the other side of her attacking object. And with the briefest pause, which could be a dancer stopping only to draw in a fresh breath, she was off, spinning again in her most dangerous game.

Like _the Feathered Sun_ she was trapped in an Event that must play out to the end—be it freedom or the freedom of death.

Unlike _the Feathered Sun,_ this craft was alive. So was her pilot.

**Boom**. A chunk of iron magnetite struck the side of the toy-craft and went spinning off, doubtless causing its own problems with navigation for future travelers.

If audial scanners worked anything like the visuals, they would have picked up startling scraps and fragments of some sort of screaming match going on whilst the craft playing footloose in the arena of space.

_["I told you I saw it with my own eyes!"]_

_["The TSD is more reliable than that, Doctor."]_

_["I don't care what those unintelligent computers said! Dull, soulless, unimaginative things with no appreciation for possibility! It's clearly—"] _

!BOOM!

* * *

The TARDIS rocked like a wet-navy ship; the Doctor clutched frantically at his control console even as he silently cursed at the stupid technicians who had repaired his precious ship according to their specifications—most especially, along the proportions to someone who was much larger than himself.

Gallifreyans had been smaller in the old days; Giants like Omega and Rassilon almost revered for their god-like proportions. The ancient craft had appealed to the Doctor in part because he felt perfectly sized within her walls. And now what? They'd done her up into something more modern and less…cozy. And unless his ear had failed him (which it never did) his poor TARDIS was just as unhappy about the change as he. Together they were struggling to re-integrate the new and unfamiliar into the old and comfortable, desperate to repair the old bond between ship and pilot.

!BOOM!

The thinning leather soles of his scruffed shoes slipped on the gleaming floor. A gout of sparking wires tumbled out of the ceiling and draped over his small body like so many Christmas garlands.

Long used to the problems of flying a ship older than some of Gallifrey's tectonic plates, the little man blew a ghost wire away from his face and shook his tousled mop of just-greying hair, hoping to clear it of cables. Eyes as electric as the wires glittered green and frantic as they narrowed, concentrating on his craft's needs. As usual, the telepathic circuits protested; no modern patch job had ever worked with her and she was trying her best to communicate with him. The Doctor (stubborn and resolute creative thinker that he was), answered the courtesy by trying to adapt his mind to her Temporal Grace.

_["Doctor! Get out of there before it's too late!"]_

The only other presence in the room was that of the scanner directly facing him on the opposite wall. It wore a tight-faced visage of a sallow, lean man with grey hair, grey eyes and dull grey robes.

["Your TARDIS cannot continue on this flight, Doctor!"] The face was insisting.

"Only a little longer!" The Doctor protested, his voice pitching high from the stress of the moment. "I'm almost there and I almost had a fix on the coordinates!"

["Doctor, may I remind you—"]

BOOM.

The Doctor yelped, his arm flying forward into space just in time to grip the Rotor. His feet left the floor and the roundels went dull. With a face white with tension and fear he faced the angry one on the other side of the screen.

["That your—"]

CRUNK.

[-Derelict of a TARDIS—"]

*BOOM.*

_["For the love of Rassilon! Will you just switch to Automatic before you knock yourself into next week?!"]_

Grim as the situation was, the Doctor had to grin tightly at the unexpected break in the other's countenance.

"Next week?" He panted even as he struggled to hang on to a control he was also trying to dial down. "When did you start picking up Earth phrases, Sardon?"

_["I'm not picking up Tellurian phrases, Doctor! I'm being literal! The wave-momentum is going to send you a full month into the future if you make even the slightest miscalculation!"]_ The Time Lord's composure finally cracked and gave up any chance of poise. [_"Doctor, you can't manually pilot a TARDIS through an active orbit! You'd have to be a genius!"]_

"Tch." The Doctor answered in that calm, just-slightly-smug way that infuriated everyone on Gallifrey—especially the ones who had scored his academic grades to such abysmal levels. "And what was your point? I'm afraid I missed it."

["If you don't stop this at once and head right back to Xenobia, I will _personally_ activate your Last Resort Bomb!"]

"Not if you want this pinhole." The Doctor snapped back. "And it needs to be traced, Sardon. Not if we want to risk further lives and further mischief in the Continuum." A wire snaked lazily across his nose; he risked freeing one hand long enough to brush it away.

Behind Sardon, the tiny images in the background froze, temporarily stunned at the way their newest recruit was speaking to his superior officer.

Sardon was ever a man of iron control and was not going to name his first temper tantrum after the Doctor.

"You are putting yourself under undue risk, Doctor." He opted to use his Condescending, I am in Control voice. That voice reminded the Doctor that his life was securely in the hands of the CIA—and Sardon's more than anyone else. "Piloting in your head is not a recommended activity."

"Then please don't distract me!" The Doctor retorted. "I _tried_ the Automatic program, Sardon! Don't you think I know that much about my own TARDIS? This pinhole detected me whenever I got within a single parsec! _It's charged full of artron! I've no choice but to go in blind!"_

**BOOM**.

* * *

Back on Xenobia, the CIA was staring at the remnants of images filtering back from space and time. The Doctor had (wisely) turned off the sound and was now keying a maneuver into the console that looked more like a game of The Mad God's Chess.

"'know that much about my own TARDIS?'" Arcalian Het'laup repeated blankly. "I don't think _anyone_ knows anything about _that_ TARDIS!"

"From your mouth to the Ears of the Mad God." His companion sighed. "You know, I don't remember him being quite like this back at the Academy."

"He was still being good. Er, trying to be good. He was never that good at it."

"I hate that I know what you mean."

A very quiet, calm, pent-up exhalation of resignation distracted the Council. Everyone glanced uneasily to Sardon, who was sitting quite still at his portion of the table, long, lean fingers laced neatly over the polished fossilwood. Despite the pyroclastic temper of his recent words, the Grey Man, whom even the Traditionalists thought "strange," was composed and remote.

"Shouldn't we at least activate the Recall?" The Advocate for the Chair proposed timidly.

"No." Sardon said firmly. "The Doctor is right." He ignored the askance expressions breezing across the room like so many leaves, and poured himself a glass of water. "The data backs up what he is saying. That pinhole is…impossible as it sounds…temporally aware of our attempts to track it; he has no choice but to trace it by manual flight."

In the flurry of shocked protests, the Arcalian Voice of Reason floated above the chaos:

"Sardon, no one's attempted to fly any timeship on manual since the Dark Days! We've lost that…that primitive skill thousands of years ago!"

"Well he's _flying_ a ship from the Dark Days, so that gives him as much help as he'll ever get!" Sardon sipped his water with appropriate dignity and calm, but his compatriots were careful to ignore the muscle trying to jump in his cheek. "And if anyone can fly at TARDIS with nothing more than the calculations in his head, it would be that Rumpled Rouge."

"Sardon, have you _seen_ his grades?" Jokul's eyebrows had lifted to the highest point on his high forehead. "He flunked Basic Square-free Algorithms! He got higher marks for turning the perigosto stick into a musical instrument!"

"Yes, I have seen his grades. I also noticed his low grades were in direct correspondence to classes taught by Prydonian Elders who'd had the delight of his father." Sardon had found a nutricube and with frozen dignity popped it in his mouth, washing it down with more water. As usual, even the least incidental reference to the two Time Lords that had given life to The Doctor lifted chills up his flesh. He took a deep breath. "At any rate, if we are to track this dangerous anomaly, we will have to use new methods—the other ones weren't working at all."

"But…If you agreed with him, why didn't you just say so?"

"When controlling a free thinker like the Doctor, the best thing you can do is make certain he never knows you approve of his actions." Sardon said firmly.

"What's he doing now?"

Sardon glanced at the screen. Through the Continuum-warped imagery they could just make out a blurred shape: the small, battered figure of the Doctor pressing his ear against the console of his embarrassingly out of date TARDIS, his lips moving as if in paying reverence to unseen forces. "Listening." He said helpfully. "One of his odd little tricks, or proof of his madness, I've never been sure which."

"Is he talking to that thing?" Someone asked uneasily

"Believe me, that's not the worst thing I've seen him talk to." Sardon paused, thinking.

"What do we do now?"

"We wait." Sardon said firmly. "The Doctor has chosen the moral high ground—an altruistic direction that will, if he survives, condemn him to further punishment and parole term with us. If he dies in the line of duty, that is his choice. If he survives, he will return to us, and we will re-write the specific terms of his terms of service. But either way…"

The Grey Man's voice faltered only briefly. He was never indecisive, just calculating.

"Either way we must watch and take what we see into personal account."

There. He'd said it.

Outwardly he was the epitome of calm, proper Time Lordian detachment.

Inwardly he was wondering if he'd pushed too far.

* * *

Inside the TARDIS, the Doctor was not bothering with the ridiculousness that passed for decision-making amongst the CIA. He had other things to worry about—getting through the field of active plantestimals for one, and keeping his bead on that infuriating little pinhole while he did so! Being the hired gun of the Time Lord Secret Police actually paled in comparison to the troubles of chasing after that horrid little mathom.

Especially considering this nasty little beast had been the object of his chase across this side of the Galaxy for at least three gigaanuums!

Pinholes were every bit as bad as wormholes…but they were much, much smaller.

The Doctor flinched as his Timeship pitched forward, yawed like Lord Nelson's ship under storm, and finally went right. When it finished its navigational gyrations, he was trembling and gasping for breath. His hands had frozen to the console in a grip an Ice Warrior would have saluted. When he managed to unlock them from the second and fourth panels, he looked hard for a moment to see if he'd dented the metal.

Steering his TARDIS through bad space was problematic in the best of times; he missed Jamie and Zoe acutely. Zoe could have manned the Environmental Controls whilst Jamie had proven adaptable to Panel Six's power units and shunting tricks. But no, no Companions yet. That was a privilege he had yet to earn, as they loved to remind him over and over and over.

He suspected that his Minders were doing it on purpose, to make sure his loneliness in isolation would make him more agreeable to accepting atrociously dangerous jobs—like this one, for example.

So he was literally flying solo with one hand on the second panel (Extreme Navigational Circumstance and Defensive Maneuvers) and the fourth (Computer Access and Databanks).

BOOM!

"Oh, bother." He muttered and tucked his head into his shoulders just before a waterfall of couplings tumbled over his body like so much clastic fill into a sinkhole. Wires trickled down his back. He had the faint impression this would look utterly absurd if it wasn't so terrifying—modern TARDIS models had killed more than one hapless pilot in similar accidents, State of Grace unable to compensate for a TARDIS' own mishaps.

He grimly plugged on, banishing from his head the unpleasant memories of old school training films showing the end result of foolish young pilots: very dead pilots, gift-wrapped like so many mummies by their own equipment. His Girl wasn't like that. He knew it; and he really and truly hoped she wasn't picking up his thoughts right now because she wasn't above a bit of a—

**SSSSSSSSCCCRRRRREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE**

Tears filled the Doctor's eyes. His protective lenses shut down all the way, but he didn't need to see so much anyway. Even stone blind he knew every inch of her.

"There you are!" He crowed, and slapped his hand down on one of the less-used controls. "Got you now, you little—"

* * *

Even on the other side of the Five Galaxies, the CIA council heard what happened next:

The explosion of over-stressed temporal flares hit Xenobia's sensors like a firestorm across a dry steppe under high winds. It blew out half the screens, drained the power off the Station's Solar Sails, clogged the Fugit Relays which sent the feeding lines to the Eye of Harmony on the fritz, and made firecrackers out of the Transduction Barriers. Even the Dominators picked up the pyrotechnic display from their side of the Universe, and the TSS departments all over Gallifreyan Territory would be scrubbing white noise out of the input plugs for weeks. It would have been a splendid time for the Daleks to stage an intelligence coup; if their sensors hadn't suffered the same damages. As it were, Skaro's mutations assessed the situation in their unnerving blackout, and made the correct decision to blame it on the next version of the Doctor they encountered.

* * *

Sardon sat, wondering if he'd been accidentally temporally frozen to his chair in the wake of the hot, reeking wind of exploded scanner on the wall. His ears rang like the Holy History Bells on Founding Father's Feast Day.

Then the rest of his hearing recovered; most of his mates were either gasping in shock or failing to hold on to their concept of 'dignified hysterics.'

Someone tugged on his sleeve. Again.

"Yes?" Sardon croaked, couldn't hear himself, and tried again. "Yes?"

"Sir!" A fresh-faced Technician with wide blue eyes was shaking. "We've got a problem!"

"We've got several problems, I believe." Sardon struggled to keep from yelling, but his ears were still adjusting to his personal volume. He cleared his throat. "What is it?"

"The Doctor…" The trembling youth wiped his sweating face. "Sent us a message cube."

"He did?" Sardon couldn't have kept the shock out of his voice if he'd tried. "He's alive?"

"I-I-I don't know about that, sir. It's the message cube he sent that's the trouble." The boy gulped hard, finally aware that everyone had piped down to stare at him. "The Cube, sir! It showed up in the docking bay. There's…" Another gulp. "The scanners say there's a pinhole inside it! We've got all our shields up around it…

"_But we don't know what to do!"_ The tech wailed. _"No one's ever mailed us a pinhole before!"_

"Be calm, boy." A chilly voice soothed the frantic youngster. It was Goth, who rarely spoke at meetings unless he had something obscure to say. The lean Prydonian was brushing bits of disaster off his fine Coquelicot robes with cool disdain. "Transmat the Cube directly to one of those Pocket Dimensions we keep on standby for emergencies, and keep the containing shields around it. If it's as volatile as we fear, it will require extreme containment methods. Our scientists can take the problem from there."

"Sir! Yes!"

The still-dazed Interventionists watched him go.

"Still alive." Jokul muttered blankly.

Sardon was impressed himself, but kept the situation relative. "At least he was when he mailed us our little culprit."

"Now all we have to do is find him." Goth was stroking his cheek thoughtfully. "Locking a rouge pinhole into a message cube? Unexpected but a stroke of genius."

Sardon would never dream to get into a battle of social graces with a Pryodonion, but the temptation to make a clever but sarcastic comment about working with the Doctor was exceptionally strong today.

* * *

To be continued...


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2:

_**Greed is a bottomless pit which exhausts the person in an endless effort to satisfy the need without ever reaching satisfaction.**_

_**-**__**Erich Fromm**_

* * *

The pinhole had already proven itself at least temporally aware by moving away from any detections coming off the TARDIS' automatic scans. Indeed, the entire reason for sending the Doctor in his battered-up old thing was because within the numerous failed attempts someone had noticed the older the TARDIS, the closer they could get to the dangerous little beast.

There was only one Type-40 TT model left in the Universe (parallel universes not being a topic for safe conversation, much less digestion), and luckily for the CIA, it was under their command. Even more luckily, the thing had a pilot that was actually willing to steer it.

And luckiest of all: it being under their authority, they had wiped it out of the Gallifreyan Register long ago. Technically it didn't exist at all, so if the unfortunate pilot died en mission, it was one death they didn't have to deal with.

* * *

"We're sending a dangerous little rouge after a dangerous little rouge," Sardon had mused with full conscious irony of the situation. He wasn't making a joke at all. He just had a finely evolved sense of reality.

"That thing has destroyed thirty of our TTs with the corresponding loss of life!" The current Chair protested for what was the shakiest argumentative grounds in the CIA: Morality. "Three were fully staffed and manned scoutships! Are you saying we can just order a person to take a solo mission that is sheer suicide?"

Sardon answered by toggling a button at his chair. The large screen on the wall instantly responded: the unmistakable luxury of a Gallifreyan Oubliette.

Oubliettes were often where the condemned lived out their natural lives, waiting for the closure of sentence…or, being Time Lords, they were often forgotten. To salve any inconvenient guilt, the government had created impervious cells equipped with every imaginable indulgence of food, drink, libraries, music and even spas.

This oubliette had stopped looking like a typical oubliette some months ago. Its current prisoner was easily bored and despite housing the body of a man in his middle years, was regretfully hyperactive.

Jokul nearly swallowed his drink the wrong way. "What is that?" He sputtered at the thing that now dominated much of the expansive sitting room.

Sardon lifted an eyebrow, taking the question literally. "I think it's some sort of fort." He mused. "Now how did he get all of the tables stacked up like that?"

"Sardon…"

"Those look like Prydonion curtains…"

"Sardon, we aren't supposed to use madmen."

"He's not mad, my learned colleagues. He simply…doesn't fit in the mold."

In the sudden drop in silence, Sardon cleared his throat and activated the speaker. "Doctor?"

There was a pause and (to Sardon's secret disappointment, the familiar scruffy little renegade did not emerge from inside the giant architecture of stacked table, chair, and draped curtains, but from behind the back of the enormous monolith). He was holding a tiny lacquered end-table in his hands and a large spool of what looked like red mantis-silk cord draped over his shoulders.

"Can't it wait, Sardon?" The Doctor's voice was overflowing with innocence. "I'm almost finished with the top-piece."

"And what do you call it, Doctor?" Sardon leaned his chin in his hand as he struggled to find some clues. "A fortress of solitude? Den of Iniquity?"

"It started out as a model of Mt. Lung." The Doctor admitted with that unnerving meek and shy demeanor he liked to use when someone was about to muscle him. Sardon once saw a Dalek flee from the Doctor when he used that voice, fast as his little static roundels could carry him. "But I couldn't get the proportions correct without knocking a hole in the ceiling."

"I'm so glad you didn't try knocking holes into anything—"Sardon noted too late a flicker of an "Oh, Rassilon" expression and decided to take a look at those rooms later. "In the meantime if you're suitably attired—"Sardon ignored the incredulous expressions across the table. "—your presence is required."

"Suitable?" The Doctor glanced down at himself, frowning in puzzlement. "And right now? I've still got to put up the Crow's Nest!"

Sardon managed not to ask what a Crow's Nest was, and forget ask why he was putting it on a model of Mount Lung—no, wait, he'd said it had _begun_ as a model—that left a third example of restraint as he managed not to ask what the lump of furniture-sculpture was supposed to be now if it wasn't thirty feet of interpretive Art…

He struggled to pull his mind back to Gallifrey. "Come and join us, if you would please."

"Oh, wonderful!" Beaming, the Doctor put down the table and clasped his hands together. "Quite a party, I see. Are there appetisers? Should I bring the coffee-pot?"

"Sardon, this is absurd!" High Legal Advocate Norlan blurted. "We are not sending this scape-wit into the Minyan Belt!"

Sardon was already opening his mouth to deflect the situation, but it was too late.

"Minyan Belt? I take it you're finally doing something about that rouge pinhole gadding about Mutter's Spiral!"

Norlan croaked. "Who told you we were sending you there?"

"You just did." The Doctor said blandly, but Sardon could just make out the twinkle of a little Mountain-devil in the green eyes hiding under his thick fringe of black hair.

Sardon sighed. His head was starting to hurt. "Meeting first, Doctor. The guards are cleared for your escort."

* * *

If meddling wouldn't be his undoing, curiosity would do the job. The Doctor arrived promptly and took the first available chair, throwing his small body back and steepling his fingers together with all the poise of a bored maestro.

"So. What have I missed?" He smiled impishly.

"You're spying on us!" Norlan had been simmering in rage from the brief space between the Doctor's checkout and his T-matting to the Station. As soon as the originator of his indignity arrived, the simmer boiled over and promptly made a mess. "You can't sit here and tell me you haven't! We only just agreed to this mission and you've been in the Oubliette all this time!"

"Oh, dear. You've found me out. How rude of me." The Doctor drawled. His little fingers danced against each other in time to his words.

Sardon often studied the Doctor's hands. They reminded him more than anything else of how deadly the man was: despite the decrepitude of his appearance, his hands were the truest expression of his inner being: small, perfectly proportioned, and frighteningly gifted, they were scrupulously neat and clean and capable of terrifying precision.

The Doctor was capable of amazing acts of misdirection with his seemingly shabby and foolish appearance, but his hands were the one thing he could not disguise. If more opponents only noticed this little incongruity…they would doubtless live longer.

"I assure you he isn't spying on anyone, Comrade." Sardon said wearily. "The Doctor is simply plagued with curiosity and boredom in his confinement and has been studying the news. The missing Scouts have been on the newsfeeds for the past three months."

"Actually, for the past terasecond." The Doctor corrected in his unassumingly gentle voice. "If you factor in the totality of all the people missing under the same suspicious circumstances in Mutter's Spiral, it all follows a pattern sometime around the first approved emergence of Homo Sapiens." He tipped his head back, letting his too-long hair flop untidily down the back of his neck. "And we're not talking about the 'thirty-so' Gallifreyans missing; I numbered it up in the thousands with an average of one life missing per every twelve kiloseconds."

Sardon was able to keep up with the Doctor (he'd learned the risks of not going along with the little man long ago). "I'm surprised you didn't request a chance to investigate this anomaly."

"I did."

Goth breathed out, his fingers also in that very Prydonian gesture. "And have you any conclusions from your research?" He asked neutrally.

The Doctor's eyes flickered from a light, dancing blue to dark green. Lungbarrow Eyes. Goth and the Doctor were forever civil, but their dislike was as coolly formal as a genteel dissection. "This can't be an ordinary pinhole." He said at last, after the silence drew out. "It's behaving more like a compressed wormhole, and like a wormhole, its presence is affecting Relativity."

Sardon had the chilly certainty that the Doctor knew more than he was telling, but he never speculated unless in pretense; he was horribly aware of his facts when he gave them.

"Nevertheless, we need to get closer to this threat if we are to understand how we are to negate it as a threat." Sardon stared at the other, nodding faces around the room.

"If word gets out about this…if people start noticing…" The Arcalian was fidgeting at the thought and started pacing back and forth. The Doctor watched him almost idly, through half-closed eyes in an expression of patient laziness. Sardon certainly knew better than to trust that look. "We should go back over the news reports, make certain our citizens cannot come to their own conclusions. There would be a cloud of hysteria if they learned we had a rouge force of nature dashing at random throughout the Universe, causing death and destruction without prediction or limit!"

The Doctor snorted.

The room temperature dropped to a point that might have been balmy in the Death Zone. Sardon had been blessed with the perfect angle of the room and decided that the Doctor's rudeness was not politically apt, but it did save Goth the trouble of crushing an enemy Chapter.

"First of all," the little man said with a sharp glare, "I did not read the news reports to come across this information. So your hidebound dreams of strangling the already filtered, sanitized and homogenized news for Gallifrey won't wash, I'm afraid." His eyes fully open now, he leaned forward, fixing the Arcalian with the intensity of his gaze beneath the curtain of sloppy hair.

"Then how did you learn about this pinhole, Doctor?" Sardon placed himself into the interrogation all the better to distract Narol from making a fool of the proceedings.

"I looked at the start charts." The Doctor answered blandly. "That's something even the CIA can't change—our people have been painting images of the night sky since before we discovered taranium!" He sniffed, and sounded much like his older personality just then. "Anyone with a basic education in astronomy can see what I saw and draw the same conclusions: This pinhole is affecting all of the Space/Time Continuum throughout thousands of different points through the Universe. It's probably affected the Parallel Dimensions and Pocket Universes as well but they're always harder to examine."

"How many charts did you read?" Jokul wondered.

"I don't recall counting _those_. Went over one map a day for two months for a bit…" He shrugged. "It began in a cislunar orbit from a point about 127.93 kilometers below the surface of Minyos. It only looks erratic because it jumps across the Temporal Continuum more than it does the Spatial portion." The pause at his interrogator was just ever so slightly challenging. "You do recall that the entire Universe is moving, don't you? Well, we have a moving bomb on one side, and a moving Universe on the other. They're moving in and out of each other's space like so many needles through knitting. Two different fabrics, sewing themselves into each other!"

"Its temporal awareness explains why it eludes our crafts." Sardon cut in before someone could be cut to pieces. "It eludes our most advanced technology but the older craft seem to be able to get closer—if only by a few parsecs—before it either escapes them or said craft get inadvertently too close and suffer the price."

"Which is the real reason why I'm here." The Doctor sighed. "I have the oldest TARDIS still functioning."

"It's your TARDIS we need, not you so much." Sardon said reluctantly.

That earned him his first smile of the day. It was disturbingly layered with a glitter of depth in those changeable Lungbarrow eyes. "Do you have anyone willing to pilot her?" He asked with that overflowing-with innocence look. "Wasn't she just taken off the syllabus some years back? How many people remember how to fly a Type 40 TT?"

"Precious little." Jokul piped up. His ridiculously handsome features scored the seriousness of the conversation with his "pallbearer's" expression. "The '40's were modeled directly on Rassilon's plan to seek out the enemy during the Vampire Wars. They are organic; flexible and require a level of creative thinking that is alas not encouraged in our schools at this time." He rose and went to the dispenser for his own glass of water. "Training a pilot isn't the problem. Finding someone willing to navigate a craft that may or may not agree with them? That's a separate order of mammal."

"Isn't that how you stole that one in the first place?" Narol asked with a sudden spasm of suspicion.

The Doctor tutted. "Stole, really. She was on her way to the scrapyard and everything of value had already been stripped. Just in case, I left a pandak-voucher at the 'yard on my way out." He smiled cheerfully. His smile broadened. "But essentially, you're asking how it was I managed to walk out of the yards with her unencumbered…" He shrugged. "Who bothers to lock up an old '40 when so few people can or will fly her?"

"Obviously, thieves." Sardon said dryly. "As well as anarchists, malcontents, insomniacs and civilians who have far, far too much information about the Decommission Yards."

Yes, the Doctor was definitely laughing on the other side of his elastic face. "Type 40's are designed to seek out trouble." He said gently as a snowflake falling upon an ice lake on a perfect day. "I promise you, we'll get to that pinhole closer than anyone else will."

"I doubt that not, Doctor…but will you survive it?" Sardon asked heavily.

Another shrug was his answer. "My term of service ends with the CIA when I die." He reminded the room with a placid calm. "It would be more interesting than building model galleons out of furniture."

Sardon kept himself from asking what a galleon was. His life didn't hinge on knowing, he reminded himself.

* * *

The Doctor was told to report to the Bay when he was ready.

Naturally, he was always ready.

That was the problem with working with Intergalactic Space Hoboes, Sardon knew. The wanderlust hit Gallifreyans rarely, but when it did…it was all but incurable. Sardon's own (questionable) family history had taught him the value of never underestimating that quality.

With the Doctor it was all about the frontier. If it wasn't space, it was time. When it was neither, it was a puzzle. And when it couldn't be a puzzle, it was something that had to be fixed. In controlling him, his controllers should never lose sight of these truths.

Sardon was always re-establishing the roles between Master and Servant, and this new problem required his adoption of a new role: He walked into the Doctor's Oubliette without warning, just as he had back in the days of their early "relationship" when he was a criminal condemned to outright death.

* * *

He found his most troublesome charge sitting in the middle of his (astonishingly clean) quarters, working on some sort of puzzle.

The Grey Man paused in the doorway, considering the sight before him. The little Hobo was still refusing to wear anything but the clothing of Earth, but it was anyone's guess why he did so. There was a reason for this, the CIA provocateur knew, but he had no idea what it was.

His small form was perched cross-legged in the centre of his living space, with a deck of strangely patterned rectangles of stiff paper spread before him in a semi-circle.

Sardon could tell with his Time Lord's glare that it was a mere 52-card deck—a toddler's grade of game, surely—but there was something about the layout and the way the Doctor was playing that suggested it was really a complex pattern.

The Doctor dealt a fresh hand before responding. "You're already prepared, Sardon. That's why you had me copied for the Matrix." The small hands spread the cards in a graceful arc. "What was the real story, hmn? An insurance for later?"

Sardon chose his words carefully. The Doctor could smell a lie. "Your medical reports."

"My what?" The Doctor blinked. Whatever he had expected, it was not this response.

Sardon moved deeper into the room and chose the comfortable guest chair. "The Temporal scanners were able to work backwards once you were in custody, Doctor. It was the point of the Trial to come to the fairest of all conclusions. Anyone who leaves Gallifrey without permission—especially under conditions like yours—must be evaluated for mental illness."

"Hah." The Doctor scoffed.

"Nothing overtly wrong with your faculties…" Sardon leaned back, adopting a conciliatory pose. "But there were some…questions about your original body."

Now the Doctor's gaze had turned gimlet with suspicion. Sardon half expected the old Doctor to step out of the skin of the new one, but of course that was impossible. The Doctor lacked the ability to change his face like he could his wardrobe.

"It's quite a list, actually. A frightening warning to those of us who would wander without the support of Gallifrey. We collected records of broken bones—I forget how many—contusions, illnesses that placed unnatural strain on your body…most renegades leave _after_ they acquire the usefulness of two hearts and multiple lungs, you know. But you didn't. Primitive dental care…and your entire system was shutting down bit by bit. There were pressures of age in your circulatory system, your nervous system, and alas that brain of yours you prize so highly. If the physicians were correct you must have been living in a constant cloud of pain for the last hundred years of that body's life." Sardon controlled his voice carefully, for the Doctor would not like to hear pity. "You were well within the boundaries for memory issues…occasional lapses of forgetfulness and confusion."

"Is there a point to this, Sardon?" The Doctor's voice was quiet and soft. His most dangerous voice and one he almost never used on his own people.

"When it comes to regeneration, Doctor, Oldbloods like you have the worst time. You're more likely to die for certain than successfully change over if you do it by yourself." As he spoke, Sardon wondered why in the world he was having this 90% socially taboo conversation.

Polite, "nice" Time Lords demonstrated their superior breeding by not mentioning regenerations in public at all. The fact that the two of them were having this conversation just enforced the fact that Sardon was not from a nice family, and the Doctor was permanently in the realm of "disreputable."

"That battered-up old TARDIS helped you through it. It may have even thrown in a few things it thought her pilot needed. Your telepathic abilities have been…evolved. You have a quantum prescience that picks up on the environmental energies and allows you to glimpse possibilities in Time just a jump ahead of your opponents. An old instinct, barely used in this modern day and age, but certainly useful for a fellow who spent most of his life one step ahead of the law. You're much healthier than you ever were in at least, oh, three hundred years or so.

"But I digress. The point I'm making is, you regenerated with barely any time to spare—fighting Cybermen, honestly!" He shook his head, exasperated.

"Earth stopped Mondas." The Doctor said in that voice of frozen calm. "That was enough."

"Because you had help."

"I don't think even the High Council's Secret Officers could have done it by themselves."

"Yes, that is true." Sardon examined his cuticles as he spoke. "It is also true that you could have contested one of the major points of indictment against you."

"Oh?"

"The abduction and kidnapping of various people—all of them non-Gallifreyans—into being your companions."

In the corners of his vision, he could see how the little man froze, in slow motion. His hands stilled over his work.

"And what of it?"

"Nothing…nothing…except you could have argued that you were a…less rational being back in that span, Doctor. One's first life is always so fraught with mistakes and heedless consequence. And yet you didn't defend yourself at all on this charge." Sardon let his voice drop. "One might think you were _protecting_ the lesser beings in question…that you were willing to shoulder an extra charge and punishment for their sakes. But that would be ridiculous, wouldn't it? To think that you cared enough for them that you'd tack all these years of servitude upon yourself so that we Time Lords wouldn't step in and erase you from their memories…like we did your last two."

It did not please him to see his opponent had stilled at his words. The scruffy little figure had paused in the middle of his task and was not moving at all. Waiting, Sardon realized, to see what else would happen.

The unkempt, dark head lifted up, and the shaggy fringe hiding those small, clever eyes fell away.

Despite himself, Sardon shivered.

"What do you expect me to say, Sardon?" The voice was very quiet, calm.

Waiting.

"Nothing at all." Sardon held his gaze. "Except I will be leaving my post in a few years. There are several candidates for my replacement. Some I have no faith in; others precious little." His eyes sharpened. "You may be able to fool them, assuming you've lived to that point. But some of these fools…" He took a deep breath, seeking calm.

"I'm not telling you to be careful, Doctor. That would be pointless in so many ways. But I am telling you that your ethics, admirable as they are for their sincerity…are ripe for the use of less imaginative minds. Minds that are not paying attention to the actual goals of the TSS and the CIA.

"You won't let that stop you, I'm sure."

"Why are you telling me this, Sardon?" The Doctor asked suspiciously. "You don't have to warn me, and like you said, I won't play anyone's game but my own."

"What was it you said when I asked you why you returned after the Lady Serena's death?" Sardon's smile was paper thin with regret at the loss of that young life. "You mentioned integrity. We see very little of that here, Doctor."

"I also told you I was aware you had the TARDIS wired for destruction."

"Which you and I both know we would only use if desperate. Those things are atrociously expensive. No, Doctor, when _you_ play a game you have three or four motives behind every move. That way you can always pick the one that suits you—which is always to show yourself in the worst possible light-and say the truth without telling the whole truth.

"Your new keepers will not know this about you. They will not appreciate your differences except how it makes you a more valuable weapon. I don't claim to have integrity, Doctor. But I entered this shadowy world for a reason, and I do NOT intend to leave it knowing my years of work have disintegrated into nothing…nor will I allow this Agency to be worse than when I first joined."

The hard resolve in his voice surprised them both; speaking as equals was something neither of them did. They were largely comfortable in their roles: Sardon as the Master and the Doctor as the recalcitrant and immature student. But times were changing and they both knew it.

The CIA was forever working against the shadows…and many of the worst shadows were those inside the office.

The Doctor's mouth was a straight line. "Is that why you had me copied into the Matrix?" He asked quietly.

Sardon was shocked into swallowing. "I didn't know you knew that."

"Child's play, Sardon. Quite illegal, but when has that bothered the Interventionists?" The eyes were dark as Arcalian dye. "Am I to be your weapon after all? A tool of vengeance against your enemies? A tool you can resurrect from death again and again as the need may be?"

"I don't believe it will come to that, but that isn't the point." Sardon told him in a voice lacking in feeling. "I don't trust the future, Doctor. But I know that you are a large part of Gallifrey's. And there are powerful interests who are watching all of us. I will not be unprepared."

"No...no of course you won't." The Doctor answered in the same voice. And his hand reached down to rest over one of the Exile tattoos resting on teh flesh beneath his sleeve.

* * *

SSSSSSSSCCCRRRRREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

Tears filled the Doctor's eyes. His protective lenses shut down all the way, but he didn't need to see so much anyway. Even stone blind he knew every inch of her.

"There you are!" He crowed, and slapped his hand down on one of the less-used controls. "Got you now, you little—"

* * *

Reality happened.

* * *

It threw the TARDIS into a spin echoing that of the much-larger craft. Together the ships fell, the smaller one pulled by micro-fine webs of gravity gained by the Feathered Sun's mass. To the Doctor's horror his new CIA Fault Locator shrieked and blew in a burst of mercury and ion.

The TARDIS was now in a war of mass between the cargo ship and herself.

"Oh, no," he murmured around the banshee screams of pained circuits. "The pinhole's messed up my block-transfer equations! Normal space doesn't know if the TARDIS is the size of a call box or bigger than the freighter!"

His small hands quickly dipped over the console. "Not the first time this happened," he murmured. "Remember when we were all shrunk to the size of insects on Earth? Not a good time!" Barb and Ian and Susan…oh, heavens, Susan. She did NOT like those ants!

The little Time Lord felt slightly more confident about his abilities this time around. His body was capable of doing what it needed to do, and his mind was unencumbered by the numbing poisons.

"Time for a new trick, dearie." He said under his breath. If the klaxon lights showed his face was suddenly shining white from sweat, he had good cause.

The Doctor hated to perform mental gyrations in more than 14 dimensions without advance warning—or at least, a very strong cup of coffee.

* * *

Outside the TARDIS, the Feathered Serpent was continuing her spin, but it was tighter. She was fast approaching the outer limits of Minyos' dead coronas. Radiation shields erected into high gear, and the last of the emergency alarms called against the perimeter invasion.

The TARDIS, still spinning, did more of it. Under the Doctor's calculations her spatial path sent her like a yo-yo on an infinitely long string. Faster and faster she spun, until thermal waves caught and threw off her nimbus in a cloud of solar rays and red-spectrum particles.

Years later, his Successor would use a similar trick in Venusian Akido—because he would be much bigger that time, and there was no point in treating a large body as a small one.

But in the body he wore now, he was quite small indeed, and he used it to his advantage.

He entered the gravity spin, joined in on the spin, and made it worse. He slipped inside the waves and increased speed until the TARDIS vibrated.

And at the last second before the Feathered Sun entered the Radiation Belt, he landed on that side of the ship.

At the same time he reverted the BTC's to the original dimensions it wore when it shrank to insect size.

He'd never erased those configurations.

You never did know when something might come in handy.

The Feathered Sun shot backwards out of the choking grip of Minyos' gravity, skimmed like a skipping-stone over the soft, flat surface of space, and broke through the Kirkwood Gap's outer skin and almost through the Gap entirely but she had sloughed off enough orbital pull by then, and the startled computers compensated just in (pun not intended) time.

The ship righted itself.

The ship was back on course, if a few weeks behind her original schedule.

* * *

The Doctor stared at the image from the Secondary Console Room. Feeling a little shaky, he wiped his face and knelt to pull out a new message cube. This one was even older than the model he'd used in trapping the pinhole, but it would have to do.

A few repairs to the Old Girl and he would be able to return back to the CIA in mostly one piece.

But even as he saturated the paper squares with his thoughts, he kept a very important one away:

He would not repair the TARDIS until he checked on the safety of the Feathered Sun.

Thousands of lives were at stake, and that pinhole had almost wrecked them.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter Three:

_From earth herbs, from herbs food, from food seed, from seed man._

_Man thus consists of the essence of food__  
__-__Taittiriya Upanishad_

It took a few minutes to take a deep breath and bring on some sort of mental equilibrium. He and the TARDIS had stopped moving—to the relief of both. They recovered in the quiet hum of the timecraft's "idling" mode, and he straightened himself up and dusted off some non-existent dust off his battered coat.

"My word _that_ was a close one." The Doctor muttered to himself. He checked over the Console, satisfied that the only casualty was that poorly-installed Fault Locator. No tears lost. Never had fit very well; surprised it lasted this long…

There were probably enough supplies in the bits and bobs between the Power Room and the Workshop that he could cobble a new one together…perhaps he should have just done that instead of let those children tweeze this new bit in?

The little Time Lord gently eased the still-smoking circuit board from beneath the TARDIS, and probably did not imagine he heard a sigh of relief. He frowned, turning the remnants over and over in his sturdy hands. The logic patterns on this newer model were not the same as what fit for the original '40's. Hmn.

"They make them more power efficient, but less adaptable, so they burn up extra power trying to adapt, and..." He sighed, sad for the future of Gallifrey if their educational standards insisted on square pegs for square minds. "Like concentrating on an athletic workout and ignoring one's scholastic achievement. Tch." He tutted, shaking his head. Goodness. He'd be better off looking up Watkins again! A sorry state of things when pre-Silicon Valley technology could keep a TARDIS going better than a Third Epoch repair shop on his own planet!

Stuffing the ruined thing in a pocket, he ambled to the Power Room to putter around until he found a reasonable Bypass Circuit in one of the drawers. It wouldn't do the job of a Fault Locator, but it would "plug the gap" so to speak, until he could finish the repairs.

From there it was a simple matter to send the TARDIS from outside the ship's hull to some place inside her depths. After that last jaunt, during which he was sure the TARDIS was convinced her pilot had been trying to create block-transfer computations, she was happy for something simple.

He was replacing the ruined screen with another model, and grumbling about how his later incarnations really needed to stop looking at flatscreens and liquid crystal technology like it was oh-so wonderful when really it was impossible to fix without a team of snow monkeys, a coal mine, and Rassilon's Dictionary of Euphemisms, when a dull GONG fluttered through the Console Room.

"Hmn?" The Doctor screwed his head down over his shoulder to look at the Console. He was standing on his comfortable old wooden chair, all the better to get to the scanner's housing. A colorful pattern of soft, flickering lights were making quite a display on the Environmental side. He frowned and pulled the tri-wing-bit screwdriver out from between his teeth. With a hop he scurried over for a closer look.

"Environment's all right," he muttered to himself. Oh, he wished Jamie and Zoe were here. They would provide a welcome distraction and caution about the unknown. And Zoe, for all her supposed limitations as a human, was rarely distracted from her eternal pursuit of numeric logistics. "How very odd." He stuffed the tri-bit in the pocket with the burnt circuitboard and paged up a few dialogs to see what was happening. "Hmn…now that's a little odd." He leaned back on his heels, thinking back in his considerable (if patchy) memory on what he knew about the class of cargo freighter such as the Third Zone's '_Sun_.

Time Lords might gripe and fuss all they wished, but their brains were wired more like humans in construction and design. In other words, they weren't as delightfully linear or logically progressive like other species such as, say, Tharils or the Trakenites (whom they secretly envied and the number of Trakenites who'd been made Time Lords in their early history proved it).

Time Lords were not naturally evolved in the way other species were naturally evolved, to be blunt about it. They were unique among species not because they were the oldest race in the Universe (if you believed that), but the only race that had evolved in the constant presence of Time. TIME had been their developmental factor, not any particular innate superiority.

And didn't they hate that.

They had to train themselves to catalog information along the nice, neat commands of a dictionary or encyclopedia because their minds preferred to file everything in a multidimensional cataloging system.

He'd dawdled long enough. Time enough to do something…

Turning the incoming data over in his head almost absently, he shrugged out of his battered frock coat and hung it on the coat-tree next to the clock.

The Doctor's coats were "rather heavy" as Victoria delicately stated it once. There was good reason. He had all sorts of things in them. A bit of a magpie, the Doctor was also (alas for tailors) a bit of a dowser. He picked up things that struck his fancy, and more often than not, those things were useful later. Part intuition and part of his temporal sense, the Doctor could have anything in those depths.

Rather than enjoy those newfangled fads of transdimensional pockets and clothes that were bigger on the inside (the favorite of vain Time Lords concerned with how they fit in their robes), the Doctor merely had many more pockets than anyone else. He had the inspiration from not Gallifrey, but from his initial fascination with stage illusionists on Earth; all the way back in his heady youth with Susan.

It should come as no surprise that his seemingly poor and valueless frock coat for the shabby-genteel had been designed and made by a professional stage Illusionist, an _ingenier_ of great craft.

The Doctor had pockets inside pockets; pockets where they had no place to be.

There were some things he never went without within those pockets. Smelling salts. A hand mirror, a spare handkerchief, his precious recorder…and of course, his 500-year diary.

"The question would be," he said absently, "Why would there be partial atmosphere on some decks, but livable atmosphere on others…" He shook his head irritably, and was suddenly, irrationally, and totally disgusted with himself at the pang of loneliness twisting his hearts into two little knots.

That was one thing you didn't learn in school—heavens, you didn't even learn it from your parents! Two hearts could certainly hurt twice as much as one! No one had even tried to prepare him for that experience, but it did give him some useful insight on the infamous "detached" personality of Newblood Time Lords. They might very well pull away to spare themselves the confusion of emotions.

The Doctor was approaching the end-pages of his 500-year diary, and he was frankly glad that his House was infamous for what the unkind element called "Post-Regenerative Selective Memory." Unlike those hidebound and boring old things, he had trusted his Original Self to whittle down his memory to the bare bones when he became this current Doctor in this particular body. Yes, it meant things could be at times frustrating, but the Diary helped nudge his ability to problem-solve…and anyway, it was much easier to sort things out when one's memory was no longer so horribly, horribly accurate.

Memory wasn't always the greatest ruler anyway. The older he got, the more he realized his recollections of events were faulty and from outside sources. That could only mean other Time Lords.

Time Lords relied on their memories too much anyway, he thought spitefully (his hands committing overly enthusiastic violence against his work on re-scanning the ship). Over and over, doing the same things, over and over again, consulting their memories only to make certain they always made the same decisions! "What nonsense!"

Oh. He'd just said that aloud.

For a moment he stood wrestling with himself, and himself won. He went to the old chair and sat in it, hands hanging loosely in his lap.

He didn't like being alone. He was used to solitude as a Time Lord—they were such remote species after all. But this…this was painful. He'd fled with Susan, and they'd seen so many wonders together, and then she left but she wasn't alone. And he still had travelling companions.

This was the first time in his life he'd spent any length of time without companionship.

He hated this.

_Just a little longer_, he reminded himself. _They promised you could have them back. All you have to do is do what they say…_

It made him feel dirty inside, and he was certain Jamie and Zoe wouldn't approve of his doing anything that made him feel compromised, but it wasn't just his need to have them back.

It was the fact that something deep inside him was warning him that…that _something_ was going on. That after all their years together, it was wrong of him not to follow-up on the futures of the two humans who had known—and loved—him best.

The Time Lords didn't understand. They were remote enough with themselves! But the Doctor had learned some very hard lessons about wisdom and experience traveling with humans…and he didn't want to un-learn them.

From his glimpses into the future, he still had companions. _And_ with the permission of the Time Lords! But that luxury was denied him. To keep him away from his close friends in this life was a condition of punishment far beyond his acceptance! No, he had to keep trying! If not for his own sake, then Jamie and Zoe's! Jamie in his own timeline could avoid trouble no more than a fly could avoid a spider. And Zoe was little more than a commodity to her own people with her high intellect and still-growing emotions. No, he owed it to them. He had to get them back, come what may.

With that in mind, the little Time Lord left his chair and went back to the Console. He was tired and wanted to sleep, but his conscience wouldn't let him rest. He had to see about those poor people aboard the _'Sun—_

A low-frequency MMMMMMMMMMMMM shot through the TARDIS, stretching the psychoacousticals to the final limit. The Doctor jerked away from the Console, clapping his hands hastily over his ears. Before he could finish drawing breath the sound was fading away.

"That didn't sound good," he muttered, and the pun wasn't intended—or all that clever. The last time he'd heard that…it had been just before the attack by the Fiction Master.

That between-dimension was far, far from them now, so he needn't fear that. But…just as he grew and learned about himself, so did he learn about his TARDIS. The poor girl had many different ways of expressing herself; it looked like he had just learned a new one.

Part II:

Locus

Deep inside the _Feathered Sun_, two harried technicians were trying to do their jobs without getting distracted. The fact that their demise was more likely an outcome than the accumulation of their work was a fine distraction.

Phix was a tall, pale-skinned member of the Ance Rim, an artificial gravity chain around his star system's most important world. More used to lighter gravity, his people's cartilinigous skeleton put him at average strength of a Tellurian but not as strong. He compensated with flexibility.

His companion Tokish was a Perelecca from a rival chain. Even their appearances suggested they would be at odds: The Pereleccan was shorter, heavier, with gleaming brown skin marked with glowing white tattoos (whilst Phix was one of those people that bruised from a hard look). His mind was as weighty as his body.

Phix was currently using his better height to their advantage. He played his laser-scanner through the empty corridors, seeing flaws in the programming as Tokish lugged the "portable" data collator. It weighed as much as a fully-grown Kroton.

"This will be the last section." Phix blew out his cheeks in thankfulness. "Not too soon, eh? We'll be over and done with it, and a nice warm cup of your spicetea at the end of the day!"

"Sometimes I wonder if you aren't really a Perelaccan, my friend. You like my tea as though you were born inside the orchard-walls."

"I may have been born outside them, but I know a good cup when I taste it!" Phix thumped the darker man in the chest. "Really, you should talk to your Elders. The rest of the Galaxy is just waiting for that wonder on the tables."

"Phix, we talked a—"

"What's that!"

Phix froze, his fingers clutching at his tools. Tokish held his breath, aware that the sound of his lungs would distract the finer ears of his partner.

"Something just…showed up on the scans, and then it…went all gone." The taller alien gulped hard.

Tokish echoed the movement, as he remembered as well as Phix this same thing happened before…

"I don't know about this," Phix was muttering. "First we're all fine, then we're all dying, now we're all fine again…it's too soon to celebrate, I tell you. We'll be back to all dying before you know it."

"Sooner or later, I guarantee it." Tokish answered with long-standing patience. "But in the meantime, dead or alive, our families aren't getting our terms' wages if we don't clock out on time. So. Keep scanning."

"You just won't let me enjoy a good whinge."

"If I did, I wouldn't enjoy being able to stop you."

Phix' mouth opened for a new round of their old fuss, but the red laser beam wobbled. The technicians tensed. A new sound slid into their eardrums: A wheezing, grinding, off-kilter sort of noise that shouldn't have made any rhyme or reason to it, and yet it did. The laser briefly winked out, and then resumed brighter than ever.

But upon an object that had not been there before.

The technicians stared at the unfamiliar shape standing between themselves and their assigned goal.

"How did that T-mat here without a mat?" Phix wondered.

Tokish knew better. "Either there's a T-mat hiding under the floor-panels, or it got here through some other means."

"Captain will NOT like this…"

The strange box opened up, and something even stranger stepped out.

"Oh. Hello." The little man paused, his bright blue eyes falling on the gun-like laser scanner with initial suspicion. "Hello, how do you do. I say, your ship was in a bit of a bother just now, and I thought I might stop by and see if you needed any help."

Again the two crewmen looked at each other.

"We can't answer that." Tokish said truthfully. "Such questions would be properly addressed to Captain."

"Oh? Excellent!" The strange little fellow beamed, rubbing his hands together briskly (only five fingers, the poor thing). "Well by all means, if you would be so kind as to take me to your Captain?"

"That will be simple enough, er, what do you prefer to be called?"

That brought the little alien up short. By then Tokish and Phix had decided he was not one of those legendary Tellurians, but a similarly-designed species. He was also more peculiar than even the wildest nursery-tales of Tellurians.

"D'you know," their arrival said thoughtfully, "You may be the first non-Earthers to ask me that question." He tipped his head to one side, his dark hair ruffling from the motion. "But to answer your question, I'm the Doctor."

"Very good, sir." Phix said to that. Without another word he dropped his laser-director on top of Tokish' already heavy burden, and went to the opposite wall from the TARDIS to punch in a bewildering chain of code.

"Oh, let me help you with that, my dear fellow!" The Doctor exclaimed, and made as if to lighten the other's burden.

"No, no, I am all right." Tokish was quick to assure him.

"You're a Pereleccan, aren't you?" The dimunitive fellow (he came up to Tokish' collarbone) chirped cheerfully, but Tokish knew logically that anyone who had gotten through the deadly mine field of fast-moving orbital bodies to get into the Kirkwood Gap (how else would he get there) was not to be under-estimated.

"The last time I looked, yes." He said evenly.

The other's face melted like warm document-wax into an expression anyone would identify as contrition. "Oh, I wasn't being unkind! Do forgive me." And quick as a blink, he was tilting his head to Phix, still coding into the wall. "Is all of that really necessary for me to meet your Captain?"

"I'm afraid without the codes Captain can't be seen by anyone, least of all someone as unexpected as you." Tokish apologized.

"Oh. I s—"

GONG.

Phix quickly pulled away from the wall, and made haste to resume his old position. "There we are," he said just in time, and a hologram burst from the wall in a gleaming green light.

The Doctor had seen many holograms in his life, and many examples of artificial intelligence. This "Captain" was a bit different from his usual experience. To begin with, most programs had an idealistic representation that showed its creators in the most…well…enthusiastic and positive way.

The Captain was humanoid, biped, and overweight, dressed in black from top to toe and his hair was far past the length considered mannerly amongst the majority of Third Zoners.

_How odd_, the little Time Lord thought, his gaze sharpening in interest. _He looks an awful lot like—_

**THIS IS THE CAPTAIN. WHAT SEEMS TO BE THE PROBLEM?**

The Doctor and the crewmen cringed.

OH. SORRY ABOUT THAT. The awful volume diminished, but the Doctor's ears would be ringing a while yet. I WAS TALKING TO THE ENGINEER. HE'S ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE CIRCUIT.

"Captain," Pix cleared his throat. "We have a visitor who wishes to speak with you."

Holographic eyes sank onto the Doctor. SO I SEE. AT LEAST I DON'T SEE YOU IN MY CREWS' ROSTERS, OR CARGO MANIFOLDS. WELL? IT WAS YOUR CRAFT THAT SAVED ME. IS IT THANKS YOU WANT? THE _FEATHERED SUN_ IS AUTHORIZED TO GIVE FULL PAYLOAD VALUE ON—

"No! No! Not at all!" The Doctor waved his hands wildly, jumping up and down in his agitation. "Nothing like that. I was just being a concerned citizen." He took a deep breath. "I was tracking that ugly little pinhole that caused your problems in the first place, and I was wondering if I might be able to view your records of its impact?" He asked this most earnestly, his eyes wide and a guileless blue, hands clasped together meekly before his shirt-front.

IF YOU'RE TRACKING THAT LITTLE BLIGHT, YOU'RE WELCOME TO OUR DATA. IT WOULD HAVE KILLED US ALL SAVE FOR YOUR KIND INTERFERENCE. Captain said sternly. BUT PRIORITIES ARE PRIORITIES AND I HAVE TO SETTLE THE ACCOUNTS FOR THE CYCLE. YOU CAN SEE THE RECORDS WHEN THE MEMORY-ALLEY IS CLEARED. PHIX WILL SEE YOU TO SOME COMFORTABLE QUARTERS WHILE YOU WAIT. I STILL HAVE TO ALERT MY CLIENTS FOR THE STATUS ON THEIR ORDERS. THEY WON'T BE PLEASED AT ANY DELAY!

"Wait? Wait! I—"

The Doctor was speaking to vaporized internal atmosphere. Two sad, sympathetic head-shakes from two sympathetic aliens was his reward.

"There's no arguing with Captain." Phix said soberly. "He operates completely within his logic-patterns."

"So it would seem." The little man grumbled unhappily. He gnawed on the tip of his finger in thought. "But I confess I'm confused. What did he mean by the Alley? What does it have to do with memory?"

"Oh. The Alley is a temporary place for all incoming data. The computers input everything into the Alley first, and then from there it's decided where it goes." Phix turned briefly rhapsodic in his enthusiasm for computers, unaware that the newcomer's opinion of them were only a little more polite than his friend's opinion.

"Oh. How…very remarkable." The Doctor said with what his Companions (as well as all of his personalities, past and future) would have deemed "remarkable restraint."


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4:

_"Anything that walks, swims, crawls, _

_Or flies with its back to heaven is edible."__  
_

_-Cantonese. Source: The Chinese Kitchen by Eileen Yin-Fei Lo_

* * *

Phix made a tutting sound under his breath. "Ah, well." He muttered. "Tokish, take our guest. I have to finish the manifolds."

"Of course." Tokish moved as if to personally take the Doctor's arm, but the little man danced away.

"So soon? I mean, I could help you."

"No, no, civilians can't be involved in this." Phix rubbed his head against an ache. "Captain was distracted; he forgot I have the latest training in the manifolds, not Tokish."

"It's probably the strain from the pinhole." Tokish pointed out reasonably. "We're not disobeying orders, we're following them if I take our guest to his room."

"I beg your pardon? I'm afraid I don't quite understand." The Doctor puzzled.

"Captain was reverting to an older memory, probably from the pinhole's damage on the ship. You see, we all take turns in training, and I'd had the latest updates." Phix tapped his temple, and the skin gave way slightly to show something hard and rigid and oval-shaped.

"Is that an Augmenter?" The Doctor asked interestedly. "I haven't seen one of those in ages!"

"Special design because I needed some re-wiring done from an illness." The willowy alien explained. "But anyway, Captain's data was off and he was remembering Tokish as the trained one. But no matter what, ship's Law states the latest trained and updated crewmembers are responsible for the manifolds. So I'll have to stay here, and Tokish can take you to your rooms."

"Oh, well, that's very kind of you really," The Doctor clasped his hands nervously. 'But really, I don't want to be a bother…"

* * *

Only slightly off and sideways by a few trillion trillion trillion light-years from the Doctor's current dilemma, an impressively high number of Gallifreyans would, had they heard his last statement, rejected it volubly and enthusiastically.

Being a bother was the Doctor's natural state of being. Whether or not he WANTED to be a bother was irrelevant to the point of insult. He simply WAS a bother. To someone, somewhere. It was a new and immutable Law of the Universe, the recognition of which was swiftly gaining momentum amongst the political scientists of Gallifrey (It was already entrenched as a part of Shobogan counter-culture, and the wall graffiti in Old Town proved it).

"I cannot BELIEVE that little buffoon!"

"Mailing a pinhole to Gallifrey. That's one for the Matrix!"

"That's not as surprising as the mailbox he used. Did you see it? Encrypted Calcium Paper! It's almost as old as Polarfrey! I bet you anything he picked it up in the Grey Zone, back when he was looting the scrapyards in the Wastelands for parts for his thesis. Probably pulled it out of an old glove-box-"

"Hush, that's all hearsay…"

"A-HEM."

Conversation stilled.

Sardon mentally prayed to a God he still refused to believe in (but took comfort in the familiarity of habit), and cleared his throat.

"Now that we're all with a now-clearly-outlined problem," he paused and gave that the needed time to sink into the collective consciousness (as well as note the glaze-eyed expressions about the room), "We need to plan our next step."

The Grey Man pressed a small, clear cube that was embarrassingly out of date compared to the modern models of telepathic messaging. Its stonepaper sides still bore the delicate scorchmarks of its expedient journey to Gallifrey. The cube skated forward upon the polished fossilwood table. It slid easily on the near-frictionless surface, and came to a stop a few centimetres from Goth's left wrist. The large Prydonion picked it up with mild curiosity staining his aquiline face.

"So he was able to send another message out." The man observed with enough calm satisfaction to warm a Movellian's chest unit. "Very commendable. And what would be the content of the message?"

It was a surprising courtesy when you thought of it. Goth didn't have to ask a lowly no-House officer anything, even if Sardon ranked higher than most Prydonions. But his concession to manners forced the others to treat Sardon the same way—remove the ruffled feathers and you had a much-more smoothly flowing conversation. Sardon didn't flatter himself. Goth was permitting Sardon to rule uncontested because it suited him to wait in the shadows. Prydonians liked to move in for the kill when the prey thought it was in control.

"A much simpler message, thank goodness." Sardon interleaved his long fingers within each other and rested his hand-heels upon the cool mineral wood. "A secondary warning in case we failed the first message about the contents of the message cube that came into the Bay; and almost in afterthought, he added there was 'something not right' about the ship that recently suffered the pinhole's attack."

"A pinhole cannot attack!" The Cerulean protested. "That would imply intention!"

"The Doctor was absolutely certain in his wording." Sardon sighed.

"Can _you_ be certain? He just survived a complex retrieval across Time and Space using nothing more than the calculations in his head—"

Jokul's voice trailed off.

Goth had tapped the cube open.

The Doctor's message glowed in a small holographic pattern in the air.

No one was about to admit they couldn't read a single scrap of Old High Gallifreyan without a very expensive translator program.

Sardon was just thankful he was rootless enough to be spared that shame. He took in the reactions of the others in idle note-taking mode in the back of his head.

He wondered if Goth really was annoyed, or just nonplussed. There was just enough of a delicate flair in the way the Doctor had signed his name that might just be seen as showing off. The fact that he'd used Old High Gallifreyan (the joined-up script form) was a pointed comment that escaped no one: The Doctor was still, after hundreds of years, protesting Instructor Waterramble's failing grade in Language Arts for using 'obsolete dialect.'

"At any rate, a message written in Old High Gallifreyan is legally incorruptible." Sardon exhaled through his nose. "Even the Doctor, for all his love of rule-bending and breaking, has concepts he holds sacred and dear. His language is, once it was carefully translated, very simple. The pinhole demonstrated INTENT when it struck the ship."

"And according to his rather…complicated…way of thinking," Goth murmured, "Any unanswered questions involving the pinhole must be answered." He stroked his chin slowly. "It remains to be seen what he will discover, does it not?"

"We could activate the Scanners and watch him."

"If I had a month of Otherstides, I wouldn't have enough time to list the reasons why that's a bad idea."

"It would take away the doubt…"

"I don't think my nerves…"

Sardon watched the debacle, and thought longingly of the assignments in which he had no obligation to bring in an Oversight Committee, or even one of its members.

* * *

The rooms were nice, if you liked Third Zoner Architecture.

There was a reason why the Doctor didn't mind going to Earth quite so much. Save a few better-forgotten tributes to Living and Dead Ego on one of the continents, Earthers hadn't yet had their impressionistic minds permanently contaminated by triangles.

The little Time Lord stood ramrod straight in the middle of his allotted quarters, and pasted a smile on his face as Tokish demonstrated the controls of his personal atmosphere, nourishment needs, and musical choices.

Third Zoners liked triangles.

There were triangles everywhere.

The walls were along slanted lines which, if you lined them up with the opposing lines upon the floors and ceilings, made triangles.

The rooms were triangular.

The lights were triangular.

Triangles were…to put it gently…"infelicitous" to Gallifreyans. They hadn't had much to do with them since the old days, when the Founding Triad of Rassilon, Omega and the Other was shattered. After that sad epoch, anything compelling the Third Numeral was unfashionable.

Which was just as well, the Doctor often thought. Any time he encountered a pyramid or a triangle, something bad usually followed: The pyramidal structure of the Great Intelligence's control spheres. The intellect-sucking pyramid it was planning for him in the London Underground. The right-angles on the Time Zone maps of the War Lords' Planet. Brr. And Osirians—mustn't forget the Osirians (as if one could!). Or Exxilons. Or Anubians. Or the Jagaroth…or—my word—the Rani and her atrocious love of pink pyramids. So much for that being a school-age phase! Or—

The Doctor politely yet firmly shut his mind from going further down that unpalatable trail, and concentrated on the subject at hand.

"It has everything you need." Tokish said with great deference.

"It's all very nice, really." The Doctor lied cheerfully, and projected truthfulness because he knew the big alien WAS doing his best and good efforts should never, ever go unrewarded.

"Thank you, you're very kind." The Perelaccan shuffled awkwardly. "Phix is better at explaining things."

"You did just fine." The Doctor patted him on an arm the size of a fossilwood trunk after the Firestorm of '300,000,045. "Phix seems a good-hearted fellow, letting you do this instead of himself. Does Captain really mind having his orders disobeyed?"

"Captain is a machine." Tokish shrugged. "And Phix' clan helped design and create him. Their people are more flexible than mine, Doctor. They are very results-oriented."

"Oh, how refreshing." The Doctor clasped his hands and spun on one heel about the room. "I'm sure I'll be quite comfortable here." Gracious, his acting skills weren't rusty by half, were they? "Is it possible to get some rest? Now that I've managed to slow down I'm suddenly very tired. It must be from all the excitement."

Of course, sir." The big man was already out the door, his thoughts turning ahead to his work. "Breakfast bells at tilalitep. The ship will show you the way."

"Oh. Oh, how very convenient," The Doctor said uncertainly—and to the closing triangular door.

"Well." He said to himself.

For all of a moment the little man stood, listening with all ears and all senses. He could not yet detect anything that suggested observation, but it was always better to assume, because Jamie was too honorable to think of not speaking candidly and—

Oh.

The small man grimaced, and let his forehead rest against his fingertips, just a moment. He breathed slowly, evenly, and with the patience of long, long practice, began counting in his head, reciting a chain of pedantic, mindless numbers, until the pain went to sleep in the back of his mind.

* * *

Phix was halfway through a stack of thin plastic report-sheets when Tokish knocked on the door-way.

"That didn't take long." The delicate-looking alien grinned. "Our guest is settled?"

"Yes, he's very little trouble." Tokish smiled peaceably. "Any progress?"

"Oh, not bad. Not bad." Phix straightened and neatly stacked the long, triangular reports into a cozy little pile against the corner (the Doctor would have uncharitably compared it to a ferret's litter pan). "Other than a few hitches. I had to alert our clients through a hyperspace channel that there was a regrettable delay in shipping, but if Engineer finished the repairs under schedule, and we maximize our speed, we ought to be clear of the Kirkwood Gap only a week late!"

Tokish sighed. "What a relief. I was worried about the tithe."

"Don't worry. We all contracted for our percentage of the payload, and a percentage is what we'll get." Phix laughed and got to his feet. "Now that I've done all the hard work with my brain, I'm starving. Let's go back for another up of your tea and I've got a tine of redbiscuits we can open for the occasion!"

"Another cup of tea?" Tokish rolled his eyes. "Are you certain you weren't secretly adopted by the Perelaccans? You drink more of it than I do!"

"Tea—and biscuits!"

"Fine," Tokish grumbled. "I'll go get the water." He left, still mumbling good-naturedly.

Phix' own, matching expression of goodwill and humor melted as soon as his friend was gone. In a trice he had leaned his long body almost backwards, toggling a quick code into the small computer screen tied into the wall-circuits.

A soft bleep and the screen opened to show their guest. He was to all appearances, lying flat on his back on the padded bed, his hands folded neatly across his abdomen. His eyes were closed, but Phix didn't know if he was asleep or not. He really wasn't certain about his physiology, save that he was probably a Minyan, or one of the other humanoid-like 3-Zoners…

He didn't bother to ask himself if the Doctor was a Time Lord. That was silly.

And perhaps he was just being paranoid, but Phix had learned to be suspicious the hard way. The Feathered Sun was a lucrative ship for all its humble origins as an ordinary cargo-freighter. Everyone worked hard and the 'Sun's blessedly limited artificial intelligence helped them maximize output.

But you couldn't factor for everything, and Phix was still shaking in personal terror of their narrow brush with death. He could only be glad it hadn't happened, and pat himself on the back for not letting Tokish pick up on his fear. Precs rarely panicked, but when they did even a Martian would take a step back.

Satisfied for the moment, Phix locked his office. After a full twenty tzaks the computer sensed no other activity and gently powered itself down, the image of the Doctor dissolving into opaque darkness.

But…

Almost as quickly…

A tiny red light snapped it back on.

INCOMING TRANSMISSION.

RECEIVED.

QUEUED.

AWAITING RESPONSE.

AWAITING RESPONSE.

AWAITING RESPONSE.

TRANSMISSION TERMINATED FROM LACK OF RESPONSE.

ADDRESS COORDINATES REQUESTED.

REQUEST GRANTED.

TRANSMISSION RECORDED AND LOGGED FOR CAPTAIN.

A string of code and coordinates rolled vertically down the computer's interface. It was followed by an audio-version of the transmitted message.

The tone of the words were rough, guttural, and almost coarse, but the clarity of intent more than made up for the brusqueness.

Someone was very unhappy, and they were going to do something about it.

* * *

On the other side of the screen, the Doctor was lying still enough to fool a casual bioscan, but his brain was working deep in its vaults, allowing his body the illusion of lassitude.

They had expected him to rest, so he would be good about it and give them a show, trusting that eventually they would be bored enough to return to their duties or whatever was going on with this ship…but there was a very good chance that "duties" might not be the only thing driving the freighter.

The '_Sun_ was still hurting. The typical hums and whistles of a Third Zone craft was very much out of true in his hearing—which was thankfully better than ever. Melody and music had been an excellent way to be sneaky about learning things in subterfuge as a child. It trained the ear to seek out patterns and from there, draft out predictions and algorithms of behavior. Gallifreyans adored music as much as anyone else, but they tended to be a little self-serving about it, lumping all under 'haute culture' and 'civilised refinement.'

It was all just nonsense, really, but convenient nonsense.

That odd fellow, Phix…he had a clear need to be in control. Interesting. Tokish was more relaxed about it, but the Doctor's sense of curiosity had ever played in a dangerous relationship with risk. The pieces of this puzzle weren't quite fitting, and until that curiosity of his was satisfied…it would burn him as patiently and eternally as the Sisterhood's Flame.

And of all the Doctors, this particular incarnation was the least likely to resist the siren song of a puzzle.

Without warning, his eyes snapped open.

It was that quick. He had waited long enough.

It was time to do some exploring.

Answers, after all, did not have a habit of finding themselves.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5:

Eat

Drink

Man

Woman

-Chinese

* * *

**The Feathered Sun:**

It was quite easy to take a walk down the corridors unnoticed. Had the Doctor been another sort of being, he might have been insulted at the lack of attention his presence inspired.

But he wasn't really trying to be seen.

Not really.

His small body nipped from shadow to shadow, back and forth in the myriad patches of darkness that came with the erratic Third Zoner Triangular Lighting systems. Several times he had no choice but to walk across long fields of corridor with bright, clear light and no cover. He did it with a cheerful smile fixed on his face, tipping his head forward in pleasant greetings to the few people he actually met.

Most of them were too worried of countenance to pay more than a token wave of the hand at him as they passed, lugging equipment or scuttling along with heavy quires of Code. A few glimpses of the script leaking off the corners of the papers warned the little Time Lord that more than a few updates were on Captain's schedule: Engineer, Navigator, and Life were also being stuffed full of re-adjustments and encrypted logic programs.

One grand thing about being in the Third Zone: everybody tended to stick to either Base 10, Base 6, Base 8 or—for a playfulness regretfully scarce—the 12 Radix. These limited options made it easier to suss out what was happening from a mathematical viewpoint. The Feathered Sun was sticking to 12, but he suspected it was a carryover from an older tradition that stuck to Base 6. A lot of species had thrown poor 6 out the window in order to disassociate from anything the Cybermen liked, and they DID like Base 6!

It made him nostalgic for the mathematics of pre-Galactic Colony Earth, back when Base 10 was the major value but the temporal calculations were firmly on the sexagesimal, thanks to the quite-observant Mesopotamians. He sighed wistfully, thinking of the fun he'd had discussing the concepts of math with tribal elders across the planet. Seeing patterns that weren't really there-that was one of their strengths and led to their indomitable spirit. Even the most hide-bound human was capable of understanding possibility, and that put them on par—and beyond—with most Time Lords, who regretfully thought possibilities were a thing of the past.

The little Time Lord found an intersection with an open area. It held a tiny space known as a "meeting-point" with a kiosk, a few soft seats and a broken food dispenser. It was innocuous so he picked it for his own, rapped the dispenser until it turned itself on, and tinkered with the gasping controls until it was fully operational. That accomplished, he programmed up one of the more stimulating beverages of the Zone and settled back against an artificially grown static-tree, blowing loudly at the clouds of steam coming off the top of his mug.

If you want to know something, make certain drinks are available…and free.

Proving inter-species telepathy for the Zone's version of strong black tea (or coffee, Chai, Mormon Tea and Siberian Ginseng thrown in) was still healthy, clouds of hungry and thirsty crewmembers converged upon the now repaired dispenser. The Doctor sat back, sipping with a wide-eyed look of wonder, and listened with both ears.

* * *

**Gallifrey:**

On Gallifrey things were continuing with something less than their personally vaunted superiority of efficiency. Since time was all relative, the Committee had taken a much-needed rest and refreshment. Sardon found scrubbing off miniscule bits of exploded viewing equipment an endeavor of extra effort, and took a small bit of unprofessional satisfaction that the others were doing the same.

As so often was the case with Sardon, the Grey Man thought of unpleasantries while he refreshed his person. It was not a pleasant habit, but inevitable with his post.

He didn't like the inconvenience of working with an entire Committee. If the problem had just been simply, gloriously and straightforwardly PROPOSED to his office, he could have just sent the Doctor on his merry way, and kept the explosions and collisions off the screens.

The less Gallifrey knew of the Doctor's shenanigans, the better.

"Shenanigans, tintinnabulations, idiosyncrasies, and creative forays into dangerous levels of engineering verisimilitude." The Grey Man muttered as he combed out his hair. The longer he had the Doctor on a leash, the more powerful his urge to send a sympathy letter to his old teachers.

And that was just one of the problems.

The Doctor was an aggravation, but he was good at what he did. He solved cases. He worked through problems—from a strategic point his only failing was his inability to _not_ find troubles. He often found more problems than he was supposed to solve…but they were always a part of the whole. So there was that problem. If there really was truth to the adage about Prydonions seeing further than others, it was well advertised in that scruffy little vagabond.

Sardon wasn't complaining about the solve rate—his Agency was _supposed_ to nip problems before they grew into bigger ones—and if they only develop that lost instinct for precognition so much the better in anticipating further disasters to prevent. But the Doctor had…changed things since his recruitment.

The Grey Man wasn't completely certain about the future of the Office he held so dearly. He had the great good sense to know that the Doctor would be a participant in these open-ended events. The question was should the Doctor be kept on a tight leash, or allowed to do what he did best and let everyone back out of the way…or the most difficult, risky and potentially the most rewarding…train him into a better appreciation of how things were Done. Sardon frankly had little hopes for this endeavor, but some agents like Goth were vocal on their determination…

Refreshed, the officer returned to the allotted meeting room and was coolly gratified to see he'd beaten the others. Goth of course, preferred to be "fashionably late" or in his case, allow the usual tiresome pleasantries and welcomes and protocols to die down before he showed up—it saved him the tooth-pulling agony of being part of it.

Sardon tried not to have feelings about the minds he was forced by circumstances to work with.

He worked very hard to have no emotions about Goth.

The Grey Man paged up the mechanics' report and sipped a glass of Rassilon Red as the Committee trickled in.

"Ah, hello, Jokul." He smiled at the leaner elder. "You look well-rested."

"I give the credit to advanced pharmacology, not any particular talent within myself." The other answered wryly as they all found their seats—as well as their own glasses of wine. "Dare I ask if there has been any news to report?"

"We _may_ be able to lock in on the Doctor's location ahead of schedule." Sardon supplied and leaned back in his chair.

"Did someone find enough authority to request another department's Temporal Scanner?" It was more likely they'd find the needed parts in a meteorfield, considering the rampant professional jealousies…but it was still nice to ask.

"No, alas. It's true that all of our Agency's scanning equipment has been damaged and it will be days before the repairs are completed, but there is a Time-Space Visualizer gathering dust in storage. I ordered the technicians to get it online."

"I get the impression the Visualizer in question is…a bit on the antiquated side?" Goth proposed carefully.

Sardon chuckled despite himself. 'It's not half as old as the one the Doctor has." He sipped his wine and waited for the round of expressions to make their way up and down the table.

"The Doctor," Goth said very slowly and quite painfully, "Has a Time-Space Visualizer." This statement was a masterpiece of restraint and it impressed Sardon to no end. Goth's seven words managed to convey a spectrum of broad unspoken observations beneath:

How did we catch him if he had one in his TARDIS?

If he has one, why isn't he using it?

Does it work at all as well as his TARDIS—which is to say it doesn't?

Where did he get a Time-Space Visualizer?

Does this mean there are other un-claimed and un-noticed TSV?

And if there are un-noticed TSVs, does this mean we should start combing the Universe for _other_ dangerously informative things—like those wretched miniscopes?

"Yes. In his TARDIS." Sardon said redundantly. "It's about as old as his TARDIS, if you can believe it."

"Even for the Doctor, that's a bit tensile!" One of the Arcalians protested. "How is it he has one? It isn't exactly something the common person uses."

"Or un-common." Someone said.

Sardon chose to be the better Time Lord and overlooked that. "I did ask him, you know." He said reproachfully. "As soon as I found out his TARDIS had…well, that among quite a collection of other questionable items of alien technology." He sighed and finished his wine, then resolutely topped off his glass for another round. "As he explained it to me, his TARDIS "jumped a track" in the 4th Dimension in the old Morok Empire, and he wound up in one of their space museums where they…er…ahem!..froze him into a museum exhibit." Sardon was enough of a xenophobic Gallifreyan to shudder at the thought.

He wasn't the only one.

"…But he managed to escape and one of his humans fomented a rebellion that excommunicated the Moroks out of the territory…and the indigenous people gave him his T-SV as a…a souvenir." Sardon finished the anecdote on a lame note. It sounded improbable, even for the Doctor.

"A souvenir." Goth repeated blankly.

"Yes." Sardon rubbed his temples. "I'm giving you the short version. Let me assure you, when he tells the full story, it becomes _incredibly_ long and detailed and there are all sorts of extraneous things like the latest fashion in eyebrows and how you can, quote (because I'm not certain what the word really means), "'china plate your way through stuffy and obsessive-compulsive Molok interrogation computers,' unquote." Sardon sighed painfully. "Of course, he was wearing his Original Personality at the time."

"Oh, that explains it." Koredin sighed too, with relief and knocked back his drink in salute, rattling his birth-emblem of the Southern Mountain Range. "He was _so_ much flightier in his first body. So irresponsible and un-grounded and impulsive and clownish and disrespectful of authority. No maturity at all."

"Not like he is today." Nescan agreed sagely. "Thank Rassilon."

Sardon realized with excruciating slowness that the two Mountaineers were not joking. Their faces were perfectly serious.

The two Southern Mountaineers realized everyone was staring at them.

"What?" Koredin asked in concern. He glanced down at their robes. "Did we spill something?"

"No." Sardon assured them in a tiny voice.

"You knew the Doctor back then?" Goth asked in a voice that was scarce better.

The two shrugged. They had the very dark, swarthy skin of over half the Southerners, and they also had the less chiseled features, but their eyes were atypical of the body type, both being a tawny gold color that as much as confessed their genetic counselors had some romantic notions about Jade Dreamer's recessive genes.

"Can't say we knew him. But everyone knew of him." Koredin chuckled. "Usually by whatever was migrating or swimming up the river or hatching or whatever."

"If he wasn't coming home with something alive, something alive was coming home with him." Nescan clarified. "That's what happens when you raise your children in a menagerie, you know."

"Yes. Everything's a specimen for study and observation." Koredin said darkly. "His parents were just as bad, both of them, but how he managed to be the best _and_ worst of _both parents_ at the _same time_ I'll never know."

The Mountaineers fell into a friendly squabbling comparing the Doctor's peccadilloes with Older Brother Brax', who was obviously the smarter because no one ever caught him at _anything_, and just see how respectable he was in High Society, while Sardon made a mental note under his brain's file for the Doctor: NOTE: RAISED IN A ZOO. He anticipated far fewer questions on the little rouge's personality henceforth.

"I should mention there is a slight problem with the Doctor's Visualizer," He gently interjected himself back into the conversation. "If I am to believe the Doctor, he rarely used it because the Daleks had learned to pick up its signals if it was left on for longer than a few hours."

"Daleks!" Someone spat.

"Yes. And the Doctor is a heedless, reckless fellow but he enjoys their company as little as we." Sardon decided to enjoy what little of the wine in his head that he could. Sobriety was all too often his lot in life, and sobriety wasn't the best way in which one could deal with shabby little space gypsies.

"Is that the right word?" Jokul asked worriedly. "It seems as though he has a gift for…for…"

"Finding them." His companion supplied helpfully.

"They seem to be just as good as finding him." Was the sniff.

"All too true. We should take that into consideration if we ever have to distract the beasts. Imagine what would happen if we dandled him like so much bait over the—"

"-It will take a little work; our sensors are impregnated throughout every atom of his TARDIS." Sardon grabbed the reins of control again. "Some adjustments will give us the means to turn on the Visualizer, and we will keep it on long enough to braid our antique's signal into his antique's." He took a deep breath, thought of another drink, and folded his hands together instead.

In the back of his head, an unbidden and most worrisome thought intruded into his long-practiced struggle for peace of mind:

The Doctor had, in his long and overly elaborate explanation on his acquirement of the Visualizer, had commented almost idly it had been "easy to fix."

Considering the state of the TARDIS, the logical portion of Sardon's brain was wondering just _where_ his concept of "fixing" something differed from the Doctor's.

* * *

**The Feathered Sun:**

A new collection of hungry and thirsty (but mostly thirsty) crewmen swarmed over the dispenser with fresh eagerness. The Doctor remained where he had been for the past twenty minutes, idly sipping his beverage but inwardly allowing his mind to race ahead with some sober calculations.

A Third Zone ship, even a freighter, was fully equipped for provisions for its crew regardless of said crew's basic life. It had been little more than a half-baked curiosity on his part to fix the broken food dispenser, guessing it was a good opportunity to gain information.

But the relish the people had was beyond his original estimation. This was more than curious: it was incongruous, and the Doctor had never dealt with anomalies very peacefully.

A young half-Minyan with the caste marking of a sleeping eye over his left brow struggled with an oversized bowl of steaming…something, his head twisting back and forth in hopes of finding a place to sit.

The Doctor beamed at him, patted the empty seat by him, and beckoned him over. "There you are, young fellow!"

"Oh, thank you!" The boy breathed gratefully. He managed to get through the milling crowd without spilling a precious drop of his prize. The Doctor caught a whiff of the steam and let his brows rise up: it had a hearty vegetable savour not unlike the tidal soups of Earth.

"That looks quite good." The Doctor observed. "If I may, what is it?"

"Rixar." The youth sipped eagerly, risking a painful burn on his lips. "It's been ages! This was the only Dispenser that could program the real stuff!"

"Really? I'm glad it's back in working order."

"I'm not questioning a miracle!" The boy announced, and went for another round of risky sipping. "It's been non-operational since before we left dock!"

"That long?" The Doctor tutted. "Oh, dear. Why did it take so long to repair it, do you think?"

"Who knows? The story was it didn't have enough in its molecular storage unit, _which I believe_." The boy rolled his eyes in exasperation. "We didn't get all of our supplies in time for Departure."

"That's a pity." The Doctor leaned forward, the picture of sympathy. "I good, solid ship like this? Normally they have the most perfect reputation."

"And this wouldn't have been any different," the boy paused to gulp more broth down. "But we're bonded to our schedules, and we have to stick with them no matter what." Gulp. Gulp. "And it didn't seem like that much of a problem at first—yes, we failed to get all of our supplies, but we also failed to get most of the passengers that signed up." He shook his head sadly. "You're lucky to be aboard, sir."

"Er, pardon?" The Doctor blinked, quite aware that he didn't understand this statement, and was fairly positive he was going to stay in a cloud of non-understanding until he questioned his way out of it.

"Oh!"

Heads turned—nay, shot in herd-formation in a single direction. Phix was striding full-tilt to the center of things, agitation all over his willowy body.

Head and shoulders taller than most of the other crewmen, he stopped himself in the middle of the crowd, his tool-kit swinging off his hips from the momentum and his head swiveled right to left and right again, taking in the sight.

"How did the Dispenser become operational?" He stared about him.

No one knew.

Someone cleared their throat. Eyes moved away from Phix to the source. It was from a small humanoid being in ill-fitting clothing and an even worse hairstyle. He was cradling a steaming cup in his hands and looking cautiously penitent.

"I beg your pardon," he said meekly. "I saw it wasn't working, and I fixed it for a cup of tea." He glanced about him with wide-eyed curiosity. "Dear me, I didn't realize this was such a popular place for a drink! Is it because we're almost in the exact center of the ship itself? It does seem to be a convenient location."

Phix absorbed this slowly, still amazed. "That it is. When it went non-operational, we all had to find refreshment stands on other decks." He shook his head. "Well." He took in the expectant faces, hopeful and longing. He sighed. "Enjoy your little holiday, crew." He chuckled wryly. "We'll take it offline tonight for a complete overhaul." At the groans his lifted his elongated fingers to the sky. "We have little choice, and you know it! Rations are not fully accounted for, and in the wake of the Storm we have to make extra sure none of the goods are damaged! Our payload depends on this, you know this! No payload, no pay!"

"Mph." Someone said into a bowl of what looked like a mixture of limp noodles and tiny cubes of orange protein matter.

Phix chuckled again, and went through the gauntlet of conspiratorial grins with one of his own. He coded up a large mug of something with ice and bits of blood-red tree bark floating on top, and drank it with open relish as the remainder of the crowd gleefully depleted the Dispenser's molecular stores in the search for one last hurrah.

The crewman had left with his empty Rixar bowl and a belch; Phix struggled his way across the room to take his place. The Doctor agreeably scooted over to make more room for his longer limbs.

"Clever trick, that." Phix told him in an undertone. "I confess, you've solved a problem for me."

"Oh?"

"Yes. Morale's been low since this thing's been out of commission…no one's going to question a temporary blessing like this! It's such an obvious solution…use up the stores and then repairing it isn't a priority at all until we dock. As long as it was broken we had it on our list of repairs. One less thing to worry about while we concentrate on hammering the dings out of the hull!"

"Ah, a simple engineering problem." The Doctor dismissed it pleasantly. "And I was just looking for a good cup of tea!"

"There you have it." Phix drank eagerly. "Morale was shaky enough as it was before this storm."

"Yes, something about the payload?"  
"More like our missing passengers. We were supposed to take on a full ship's worth of colonists to the Deep Zone, but when we got to their ship…" The tall alien sighed. "We had their cargo, and their supplies—lots of them—but no Colonists! That means the full transport value is less than half of what we were promised!"

"No Colonists at all?" The Doctor frowned. "What did you do?"

"Our contract was clear. We picked up what was there—that being their supplies and food stores. If no one files a claim for the possessions by the end of the Standard Cycle, all the properties are auctioned off and the sum distributed to the crew. Except for Command portion, of course. Those monies are allocated to the things Captain and the other programs like. They're quite fond of their music collections and virtual realities."

"Captain and the holo-programs that maintain the ship's systems have…individual tastes?" The Doctor blinked. Several times.

"I know." Phix sighed. "What can you do? I can't stand Opera myself, but if it keeps Captain happy..." He took a fortifying drink. "Right." He rose to his feet and looked down. "Please be careful wandering around, sir. It's best you go with someone. The ship is a fine one, but not all of her corridors match up with her last-recorded blueprints." His pale face creased like a table linen. "Especially since so many of our records defaulted to our last codings pre-Departure. We're still working on it, but do remember that if one of the wall-charts tell you to turn left for the Holodeck, you might find the library or swimming pool instead! Or you might get completely lost trying to find your way back to your ship!"

"Oh, dear." The Doctor stared upwards. "I do thank you for telling me. That's good to know!"

"Not at all." Phix walked away, still drinking.

The Doctor watched him go, a bland and inoffensive expression on his mobile face.

None of his Companions would have believed his harmlessness for one single moment.

His small hands rapped an absent pattern on the little table as he thought.

He had an advantage that gave his personality a common ground with his Original self—a common ground none of his other future selves (going by his thankfully brief encounters) had.

He remembered being a fugitive **all too clearly.**

If you are always on the run, afraid to take the time to even look under your shoulder, you are going to be attuned to people who have a similar outlook.

He knew his future self would have less of this memory—and good for him. It was a burden and a curse more than a blessing—the advantage to survival it garnered him felt painfully high every time. He ached for the freedom of not having that fear.

But right now…it was a grudgingly useful insight.

Phix was hiding something, and there was no such thing as a small secret in the depths of space.


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6:

"All must eat and drink to survive."

-Proverb

* * *

Phix meant to keep an eye on their odd little stranger, but he momentarily let it slide as he moved out of the anxious press of the crowd. His species tended to be easily distracted when nervous.

He had a lot to be nervous about; Captain's newer programming was still in the realm of "unsalvageable" and he still had no idea if the data could even be fully extrapolated. If not, the consequences would manifest in a software "audit" as soon as they docked and reported to Third Zone Authorities for Space Travel. Reporting that pinhole wouldn't be the half the headache; they would have to prove all of the physical damage to the _Feathered Sun_ actually came not from a pinhole, but the same pinhole.

And then there was also the little matter of the missing communications between one of the better-paying Contractors and the '_Sun_. Phix wasn't completely certain what he should be doing about the matter because a late, positively stale message isn't the same as a message marked as "urgent" and ignored. No, this was a lot worse.

Being an Ancel'ak meant he was going to worry about some things more than others. It came naturally with his biology.

But regardless of his species, the basic fact remained: The Contractors were not the sort of people one betrayed. One dared not even make a mistake in their presence. They did not tolerate mistakes from outsiders, and they were all too quick to see an insult in the slightest of cultural collisions.

So it was with some trepidation that he remembered he was wanting to keep an eye on their ersatz guest; he turned and peered about the dissipating crowd only to be dismayed by the absolute lack of an odd, tiny little, dark-haired humanoid in odd, large and dark clothing. It seemed unbelievable that someone to obtrusive could have vanished so effectively…but there was the comforting proposal that he was away from the Intersection now…

Perhaps he was simply hanging back and waiting for the others to leave?

Not a bad thought.

Phix ducked inside a shadowy shelter set into the wall of over-reaching leaves and branches. One of the nicer things about the Third Zone was the use of artificial plants to create atmosphere for the living residents, and he far preferred their refined touch against the rough and cantankerously efficient breathing-pumps kept between the floors and walls. No, he concluded after much peering throught he screen of leaves, no sign of the little fellow…

"What is wrong, friend?"

Phix jumped from the deep voice at his forearm, and glanced to Tokish. "You can be very quiet when you want to be!" He complained—again.

The Perelaccan blushed. "I am sorry." The big alien apologized. "I never mean to frighten you."

"Ah, it's nothing." Phix brushed it aside. "I'm just worried about our last Customers."

"You mean the _latest_ of our customers?" Tokish was beautifully literal when it came to business. "The ones that spoke to Captain after the Colonists failed to show?" He was specific too.

"Yes. We don't want to make them unhappy."

Tokish didn't understand. His big, stupid eyes reflected his lack of understanding and lack of vision. Why would they want to make anyone unhappy? Sometimes Phix had his fill of dialog with those people.

The Ancel'ak breathed for calm. "They're the people of Heed, friend." He said bluntly. "And you know how they hate to wait."

Tokish was a dark-skinned alien, but he did a fair imitation of turning as pale as his work-partner.

"Yes." He agreed quietly. "Yes, they do."

"I missed their communications by a few _tells_, Tokish. A few _tells_!"

"But…what do they want from us?" Tokish tried to think as swiftly as his lighter-gravity-impaired brain allowed. "I thought they were just wanting to bid off the Colony's supplies…"

Phix looked both ways, and ushered Tokish to the side of the hall so the rest of the crew could keep going about their business without staying in range long enough to listen. _"I used the Fourth Article for Captain."_ He said under his breath.

Tokish breathed. _"But that's—"_

"_Perfectly legal, friend. I have the authority and it saves so much time and lost property damage, plus it would get us our pay faster than just waiting for the usual slower routes and channels."_

"_But if the Colonists ask for their property—"_

"_It's not likely they ever will, Tokish. They're missing. Vanished. There's not a trace of them." _Phix made a swiveling hand-motion.

Tokish stiffened. "Do you think the pinhole found them?" He whispered softly.

"_It's more than likely, isn't it? They were on the other side of the Kirkwood Gap—well so was the pinhole!"_

"_Oh, my E'Efre!"_ Tokish invoked the God of Mercy. _"It makes sense." _He swallowed sadly. _"Oh, those poor people! How many—almost a thousand?"_

"_Yes. But at least we don't have to explain to Colony Council where their people are."_

"_Small favors, but all those lives lost..." _ Tokish shook his head as they walked away from the comforting cluster of hydroponic trees.

Silence.

After a few minutes of neglect, the trees rustled. Had anyone remained at this point, they would have thought the plants were sighing in relief, free from the presence of overly-complex and emotional meat-based life forms.

A moment later a small, dark shape dropped from above.

* * *

The Doctor heaved a deep breath of relief. It hadn't been easy to stay in the tops of the lung-trees, much less stay still and quiet. But as he'd calculated/hoped, the crewmen hadn't stayed there forever. All the better for him. Thank goodness.

Fourth Article. Hmnn…now that _was_ interesting…

_A__i__y, but what is a Fourth Article anyway?_ Jamie's imagined voice asked impatiently as he nipped down the corridors.

_It's very simple, Jamie. It's a law held to the Intergalactic Merchants regarding unclaimed goods. To make it a very short story, think of it as preparing to set sail to another country. If you don't show up to claim your luggage when you promise you will, the captain will sell it or do whatever he wants with it._

The devoutly honest Jamie had a problem with this shifty arrangement.

Imaginary Zoe chipped in, as usual the infuriating voice of logic. She asked Jamie what one should do if the goods in question were perishable—like the honeycakes he liked so much? Or what if they were alive—like a skep of bees? You couldn't keep bees in storage for long without killing them, could you? Or how about a chest of medicines that would expire in a short period of time?

Imaginary Jamie groaned and gave in, protesting Zoe's ability to give a solid gold answer to a groat of a question.

The Doctor smiled sadly to himself and hurried on. And if, in his mind, there were two shadows flitting after his, he did not think it unusual.

The Doctor quickly shut the door after himself and glanced furtively about his surroundings. Nothing. Good. He primed the lock and whirled popping a small plastic triangle out of the wall at head-level. Wires, conduits, circuits and not a few messy bits of Third-Zone technology winked back at him in the light.

"Oh, bother." The Doctor muttered under his breath. He fished a small light out of his pocket, clasped it in his teeth, and stuck both hands into the guts of the wall, dowsing by fingertips for the elements he needed. "Hah!" He gloated, and pressed a few test-combinations with the felt-tipped conduits.

The lights went out.

"Oh, bother," said the darkness.

Tap-tap-tap.

SHOOM.

The lights resumed.

"Hmph. Back to Base 8 I see…" He chose to take the higher path of evolution, and kept the remainder of uncomplimentary opinions to himself. A handful of lovely red sparks flowed from the panel.

A dull blue-white glow lit from the desk-mounted pyramid on the guest's desk.

"Excellent!" The little renegade rubbed his ion-itchy hands together and carefully recovered the panel before dashing to the hijacked computer. Off the "guest" lanes of computerized traffic, he ought to find many more interesting answers. Not to mention "guest" lanes were always under strict supervision.

Not that the Doctor disagreed with supervision…it just tended to be overdone. Especially when a mature and competent person such as himself was the one being supervised.

He settled into the desk and pulled out the small keypad. Within seconds he was typing merrily away.

* * *

**Gallifrey**:

"Do contain your enthusiasm, my good Patrex." Goth said dryly. "Our Sardon did mention the Visualizer was an older model."

"Older model—yes. But that isn't an older model." The other shuddered. "That's the last of its kind, surely!"

Sardon did not quite sigh. He steepled his fingers together and smiled. "It is in full working order, I assure you." He kept his smile. "Unlike the newer holographic models, this one carries the two-dimensional representation typical of the Vampire War Era technology."

"So it doesn't even proclaim images in color." Jokul was resigned to the dark fate of their Committee's success. His school was like that.

"Of course it doesn't proclaim images in color. It can't. Vampires slipped completely around the frequencies in color. A color-scanning visualizer would have been a liability and a hazard back in those days."

"Thank YOU, my dear, dear fellow, for the lesson in Obscure History."

Sardon cleared his throat delicately. "Once our model finds the Doctor's, it will be but a few minutes' work in opening a channel between the two. From there we will be able to see what is happening, but the connection may not occur in a convenient moment. With the age of the machines in question, it could be days or hours away from the pertinent Event." It was really too much to hope that the Committee would get to watch the fellow die in the line of duty. Sardon knew for a fact that Time Lords were a noble and privileged race—and luck was not a requirement of either quality.

* * *

**The Feathered Sun:**

The Doctor had no idea that hours—and so many of them—had passed in the Realtime of Gallifrey. Realtime tended to bother him because he tended to get a little bored and tired with keeping shifting and backwards-winding clocks in his head. It was doubtless one of the problems with spending so much of his life as a Renegade without the close presence of Gallifreyan Time in his head.

He leaned back in his chair and rubbed tired eyes, wishing for a cup of something—he'd even drink the Brigadier's horrendous AAFI tea! With a yawn he stretched and rolled his shoulders before returning to the small screen.

The information inside the ship's databanks was quite bare and that was to be expected after a pinhole's havoc. The Doctor was pleasantly assured at what the banks were not saying—and that was conflicting data. A pinhole was capable of inflicting almost any damage. Thank goodness it had kept mostly to the structural.

"Still too bare," he muttered to himself. A ship this large, with intelligent programs guiding the upkeep and maintenance of the ship's manifold? Nonsense. There were large portions of data simply missing, and he suspected the pinhole had given someone—perhaps several someones—an opportunity to indulge in some computerized skulduggery.

There was nothing as useful as the excuse of collateral damage in which to make things "go hiding." A clever technician could even pre-program for such an event if they were resourceful. All they would need is an opportunity to have the desired object (in this case data) transmit itself to a pre-arranged bolthole as soon as the computer's maintenance scans fluctuated. Rather like giving the horse permission to run out the barn as soon as the door was left open. The timing would make the casual scan and report look as though the data was destroyed by the pinhole, not spirited away.

"The problem is," he continued to murmur to himself, "what data would go missing...and why? For what purpose?" Data was, when you came down to it, a most precious commodity.

He leaned his chin on his hand and watched glyphs roll across his gaze. The pinhole's data was still in the process of collating when his bottom left pocket vibrated against his knee.

"?" He jumped slightly and looked down. "Good heavens." With a frown the little Time Lord reached in and pulled out a squat little device. It was disclike, hung on a looping chain, and could have passed for pretentious jewelry in just about any corner of Mutter's Spiral—but was in fact considered conservative and stated Gallifreyan office badge-ering.

"Bother," he said under his breath. The vacation was officially over. With a resigned shrug he held the device inside his palms and tapped the center. A small hologram bloomed from the tip. His eyebrows slipped straight up in mild surprise to see the Time Lord sculpted in virtual light was…

_**"You look surprised to see me, Doctor."**_

"Somewhat, Sardon." The Doctor was able to bring one brow back to earth, but the other was stubbornly stuck up. "Normally I'm talking with your clean-up crew at this point; not you."

_**"This last mission, as you may be aware, has some marked differences from our usual design."** _The Grey Man folded his lean fingers over his waist, the pose of calm. The Doctor wasn't fooled—he'd decided long ago that no one could be that calm outside the borders of sociopathy or Orion-grade acting.

"Did you get that rotten little pinhole?" He interrupted before his Keeper could begin a really good lecture.

**_"Oh, we 'got it' I assure you, Doctor."_** Sardon said wearily. "**_What possessed you to mail it to us in a message cube?"_**

"It's calcium paper!" The Doctor yelped indignantly. "What else could I use? Dwarf star alloy?"

**_"Even more than usual, I fear you're making no sense."_**

Oh, Daleks. Cybermen. Cyber-daleks. There. That was a worthy explicative. The Doctor narrowed his eyes. "That pinhole is _dangerous_, Sardon. You'll know that if you got the message I put in there with it."

**_"Oh, we have your message, Doctor."_ **Sardon's holographic expression was reproachful. "_**You managed to break the telepathic circuits for the entire mail room. Have you ever thought of…not shouting when you're sending a message?"**_

"Ridiculous! I was not shouting!"

**_"Doctor…"_** Sardon was closing his eyes. _**"You were shouting."**_

"I do not shout! We are not exactly the most telepathically gifted species, you know!"

_**"No, not as a rule. You, however,"**_ Sardon said with the over-bloated dignity of GREAT patience, as he spoke very slowly and carefully as if to a small child merrily holding Omega's Hand, **_"have been living amongst more primitive minds for centuries and your brain has been inevitably…contaminated with the presence of more telepathically communicative species. You may not be aware of it, but you were shouting. Quite loudly."_**

"Oh."

**_"Yes, Oh."_**

Pause.

The Doctor admitted to a prickle of dread as a terrible suspicion crept into his mind.

"If I was shouting, what was I saying?"

**_"Oh, I'm sure it was quite fascinating, thought-provoking and very pertinent to the situation at hand."_** Sardon assured him with enough leveled-out sarcasm to replace a cyberplanner's mercury levels with rusted filings. "**_But we couldn't really hear it over your psychic volume."_**

The Doctor winced. "Hopefully, that will be the last such time." He prayed. "But you do understand that pinhole is more than typically dangerous."

_**"Yes. Your note was extremely definite. Once we had it translated."**_ Another pause. Sardon held his gaze, neither man blinking. _**"But right now our little problem is sitting with suspicious meekness in its holding-box."**_

"Dormant, you mean."

**_"Is there a difference?"_**

"Very much. That thing behaved with intent, I'm telling you! The fact that it is not moving: doesn't it suggest that it needs stimulus?"

Sardon sighed. "**_I am officially on break from the meeting, you know."_** He said darkly. _**"I had hoped to use my stolen time as the very last TSS-owned TSV was linked with yours, in a conversation with intelligence and collect some information away from the chatter of the other members of the Committee without either of us having to put up with the static of their irrelevant questions and condemnations."**_

"Goth, eh?"

**_"You're very amusing, Doctor."_** The Grey Man did not look amused. He was good at that.

The Doctor bit his lip, looking like a child for a moment. It tended to disarm his opponents, but in Sardon the mannerism only compelled him to hold down the ever-rising urge to find a corner in which to sit him.

"There's something very wrong with this ship, Sardon." The Renegade said at last, his voice quiet. "I can feel it, and it has something to do with this pinhole. Now I agree my mission was to either collect that thing, or die trying...but as dangerous as it is, I don't like knowing this ship full of INTELLIGENT Third-Zone technology has managed to record and then "make disappear" nearly thirty pareks' worth of scanning data about it."

**_"Thirty pareks!"_** Sardon exclaimed. _**"Why would an intelligent program find a rouge pinhole so interesting!"**_

"Any possible answers to that mean it's worth investigating." The Doctor reminded him. "You know as well as I do there's civic unrest over here. The Minyans-"

**_"Yes, yes, yes."_** Sardon lifted his hands as he shouted, but the Doctor knew fake anger when he saw it; Sardon was alarmed.

"And eventually they'll realize their monitoring equipment isn't working in my room." The Doctor glanced about him out of habit. "So I suggest we make this quick. I'm going to have to go exploring on my own." He grimaced and tugged on the Time Ring wrapped around his wrist, safely buried under sleeves. "You can use the time to get the TSV online, but you may want to get the Committee to earn its chops and investigate any recent developments in the Information Market."

_**"You mean the Trated Collective. And those Voraxxian traders."**_

"Slavers you mean."

Sardon's gaze abruptly went coldly shrewd—never a good sign for the Doctor. "_**Or something worse. What are the odds the Players are involved, do you think?"**_

The Doctor froze.

Sardon mistook this for something else.

**_"Yes...it ought to be investigated."_** The Grey Man continued. His grey eyes narrowed to glittering slits of gunmetal. "_**Continue your investigation, Doctor, but I want you to Recall if you get too deeply into the trouble that follows your inevitable path."**_

"Sardon, I-!"

The Doctor was talking to empty air.

"...think...we should...think carefully on this..."

The little Time Lord groaned out loud, rolling his eyes to the ceiling. As usual, the barest mention of that rouge race of Immortals made him run through a complicated range of reactions. Running was the preferred response, and he prided himself on having the most excellent flight-or-fight trigger of any Time Lord in the Galaxies.

But when running wasn't the response, that left the other choice, which was alas the ONLY way of dealing with Players:

Subterfuge, trickery, camouflage, betrayal, Byzantine plots, politics, and staying far, far away from prisons, carnivorous beats, projectiles, implements of death and torture, tiresome speeches, and firing squads.

Sardon was suddenly very certain that Players were involved in this somehow—certain or needed to make certain that they weren't. That in itself confirmed a long-nurtured suspicion in the Doctor's already-healthy paranoia.

Sardon knew more about the Players than he wanted anyone to know, and something about this case made him access information the Doctor wasn't privy to.

And if the Doctor died or met with one of the many interesting fates the Players (particularly a smiling Countess) had planned for him...Sardon would shrug sadly at the waste of life and continue on.

The little Time Lord sat without moving for one very long minute.

He'd liked this mission much better when he didn't know what was happening.


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter 7:**

**"Eat not the bread of an Evil Eye."**

**-Proverbs.**

* * *

The Doctor easily slipped back into the corridors of the Feathered Sun. In minutes he was almost a kilometer away from his rooms. After a quick examination of the wall maps he realized he was better off with ignoring them. There was enough to this ship that the most surprising things about it shouldn't be trusted. Going by his innate sense of direction he nipped into the nearest lift and pressed the most interesting-looking button. If he were to judge the glyph by most 3-Z's lingua franca, it would take him to the Core Deck.

It was a common misconception that ships kept their brains in the center (the intersection of the transverse, coronal and sagittal planes) of the vessel. What was logic to a being that had evolved with its heart and brain inside the most protected parts of its body was not the same as logic for a machine.

A ship's brain had to be not only where there was decent protection…but optimum data input.

That meant the brain had to be close to any part of the ship where there was the majority of scanning and sensory mechanics.

_If I'm to get some answers, I'll just have to go to the source,_ he shook his head at the waste of—parding the expression—time, and stuffed his hands in his pockets. His own reflection twinkled back at him in the highly polished dark glasstic of the lift. Bored, he watched himself for lack of anything better to do as he went on his merry way.

_Getting greyer. It's just starting to show. How many years have I been working for them?_

He knew the official answer, and if he'd not been off-planet from his own people so long he would have believed it. But the handful of years' accounting of his work didn't factor for the impressions and talents he'd collected (many of them unknowingly) as he'd lived as a fugitive.

It made him nervous to think about; in the dark privacy of his thoughts he wondered how much of a Time Lord he really was. In comparison to his people he'd never been a good Time Lord. Rassilon! He'd rarely even made a good Gallifreyan!

But he'd tried.

* * *

As he suspected, the lift dropped down, into the coronal plane of the ship.

The Doctor stepped into a half-lit, shadowy zone with just barely enough oxygen to keep up the life support. He rubbed his hands together in satisfaction to see the illumination coming from an entire wall of dials, levers and graphs. This was a portion of the ship's brain—one concentrating on "life support" but it would be more accurate to call it "ship's support".

As he'd thought. The majority of information sensors was coming from the docking portion of the ship—the front-lower portion. The pinhole had been attacking the coronal inferior—which was the least likely portion of the ship to attain damage during an attack. But the pinhole, whilst having some awareness, wasn't tactically aware. It had gone after the poor ship with intention if not strategy.

He was going to find out a few things.

He fished in his pockets, humming scraps from "The Poacher" under his breath, and found a small memory-disk next to his SSD. He frowned at the nasty little bit of Time Lord technology, but dutifully attached it to an obliging data port. The plastique-metal conductor tips molded itself to fit into the Third Zone-built computer, convincing the stupid machine it was an approved and legal piece of equipment from its own crew. The Data relay chirruped like a small bird, happy to fulfill the polite request for a data copy.

The Doctor glanced down, tapping his toe nervously to the floor, and pushed up his overlarge sleeve, checking the time on his wristwatch. Unlike the pocket-watch of his predecessor he still kept, this one worked most of the time.

A complete breakdown of the information required going back to his TARDIS. He was worried about his ability to get there without being seen. Even his luck couldn't last forever, and he was already too lucky for comfort.

CHEEP.

All present and accounted for, the now-fat and full datadisk made a sound that could have passed for a hiccup. The Doctor plucked it off the wall, noting it was a gram heavier with all the illicit information. A part of him wondered how the Time Lords would use this data for their own nefarious ends, and could only hope they wouldn't be interested enough to do so.

Still, that was a whole gram's worth of information...he hadn't thought a freighter ship could hold that much memory in its banks.

Too many mysteries.

He shook his head, flipping his thick hair from one side and then the other, and slipped the disk inside one of his many secret pockets. This one was a mirrored-pouch sewn directly behind the basted cut where a flower-stem would rest.

One of these days, he worried, Sardon would find out how easily he was hacking into the computers on Gallifrey.

Right, time to get out of here...

He walked quickly back across the dimly lit floor, but paused before his hand could manually summon the lift doors. He paused, his shoulders squaring.

He looked down.

His hands were shaking. The hairs were standing straight up.

All the way up his arms, across his neck, and down his back. He shivered as the sensation spread to the top of his skull and, instead of diminishing, grew more powerful.

The little Time Lord didn't move at first. He controlled his breathing and rising sense of warning panic in his chest, and slowly, slowly, turned his head.

No Daleks.

He didn't know if he ought to be relieved or disappointed: Daleks could sense him as much as he could sense their icy, tangled lumps of hate. It all stemmed from that first, all-encompassing encounter on Skaro. Like a chick imprinting upon the first face as its mother, the Doctor had slowly realized that for good or ill, he would be the enemy of the Daleks, and they would be his.

His psychic abilities slowly grew after that—long-buried primitive instincts of his people, boxed up and made dormant for millions of years. When Science replaced Magic, many things went to sleep inside their bodies and minds.

Waiting.

Sardon was more right than he knew. The Doctor hadn't realized he'd changed so much from his people.

From the Daleks he grew to be aware of other things: WOTAN. Cybermen (never as well as Daleks), alien minds across the Galaxies. And the more he encountered them, the harder it was to ignore the need to interfere.

Because this prickling dread, this unique sensation in the presence of evil, was as intolerable as a warped tuning-fork. A song out of true. A wrongness.

The feeling terrified him, but he did not have it in himself to walk away from it.

Did this have something to do with the Heed? A race that must be known by another name because he'd not heard of it before. Phix had been terrified of disappointing them. And he seemed to think they would be disappointed.

He started walking to the source of the feeling.

INCOMING TRANSMISSION.

RECIEVED.

QUEUED.

PREPARE FOR BOARDING AT STATED DEADLINE.

MANIFOLD ATTACHED.

TRANSMISSION CLOSED.

RECEIVED.

QUEUED.

* * *

"That's...interesting..?" The little Time Lord commented quietly under his breath. In contrast to the better-let corridors of his earlier snooping-about, these was a polarized opposite: The halls were wrapped in profound gloom. There were no lumen available along the sides of the walls. It was all darkness, ineffectually lit by the pitiable 37+ candlelight of the lift's sensors.

But despite the visual quiet, there was plenty going on as far as the ship's command programming was concerned.

Captain's odd, half-kiltered voice was putting out the orders right and left:

"**Core Deck, Codifying District A-4. Report, Engineer."**

"**Engineer reporting. Codifying."**

"**Captain awaits."**

"**Engineer responds. Completed."**

"**Captain resumes. Completed."**

"**Engineer awaits."**

"**Captain to Engineer. Codifying District A-5."**

"**Engineer responds. Codifying."**

"**Completed."**

"**Completed."**

"**Codifying…"**

Captain's electronic voice blended with the harsher and less harmonic patterns of Engineer's synthetic voice. The Doctor found himself actually preferring the latter's because it was less…human. Captain's voice betrayed a more expensive program that interacted with its sentient creators more. It irritated him because it reminded him of beings who were otherwise intelligent but also falsely emotional.

Still, the ship's computer's resemblance to some sort of intergalactic salesman/con artist was less important than his irritation. He had work to do, that princkling dread was getting stronger...and he had a feeling he was running out of time.

* * *

**Gallifrey:**

"That's it?"

Sardon met the disbelief with a weary patience. It was all the lot of being in his post.

"It is fully functional." He said of the large, metal and glass torus now dominating the wall.

"Just how old is that thing?"

To be fair, Goth didn't seem at all offended, just fascinated. He ignored the ripples of offense by the others and studied the battered old antique of a Visualizer with an openly curious expression.

"That depends on which part of it you mean, I'm afraid." Sardon confessed. "It's been assembled from different models and different parts from across the galaxies." He took a deep, deep breath. "It is a monochromatic viewer. In the old days color spectrum recording required the use of precious crystals and a terrific output of power. That's why there are more surviving older models than the make that followed." He turned to see the technicians arriving. "Ah, just in time."

The tech was an old veteran of the Agency who had chosen to wear her third body as a mature young woman. Only an antique necklace about her throat marked her outside of the "fully functional and only functional" mentality. She had lived very sensibly, and her 25,000 years were well set upon her shoulders. Her projection was stern and sober and a little intimidating—which was comforting to the Committee. They liked assurance in their workers.

"I shall have to open up the calibrators as soon as the machine is online," she said without preamble. "It will take a few minutes but I have worked with this model before and I am familiar with its logic programs." She quickly opened the main hatch and started digging.

Jokul spoke up for the first time in many long minutes. "You are Karnack?"

She did not pause. "Yes, sir." She said calmly.

Jokul nodded but said nothing.

Sardon relaxed a bit. Most Gallifreyans did not flaunt their foreign blood. In Karnack's case it was necessary. Her mother's race had been more than a little psychic and that people considered it mannerly to warn less telepathically-gifted species.

He noted Goth was studying the necklace, doubtless reassured that the dull yellow meant her psychic intellect was properly at rest. Karnack's skills as a technician were why she was such a valuable worker; her telepathy was useful when she encountered telepathic circuits that wanted to tell their masters they were sick or injured.

And she was about 50,000 years old, which meant she was certainly and without a doubt well-assured of her place in society.

A crackling, popping snarl erupted from the TSV, and the screen struggled to life.

* * *

The Doctor's journey had taken him to the far side of the computer room and a heavy door, well sealed against casual entry. Since its discovery, he had spent his time constructively in a sincere effort to figure out what was on the other side. "Hmn." The Doctor hummed under his breath as he puttered through the manifold. "Interesting," he said quietly. "'transmission recorded and logged for Captain...'" He stroked his chin thoughtfully. "Very interesting indeed. Why all the bother?" He tinkered here and there with a few relays, frowning in concentration as he did so. "Let's just see where you came from, shall we?"

But even as he did so, a fresh wave of premonition made him shake. He dropped his screwdriver but caught it before it could clang upon the floor just in time. "Oh!" He gasped faintly, and raised up, clutching at his temples with both hands. His eyes squeezed shut, teeth baring against a terrible pressure in his mind. "Oh, dear." He mumbled through his teeth. "Oh, goodness."

Mercifully, the pressure subsided...but just as he started to drop his hands it happened again, stronger than ever. No, wait, this time it was leaving...

The Doctor held his breath, and his brain felt as though his ears were ringing. He took a deep breath. In the wake of that pressure his mind was left temporarily clear. Clear as crystal. Clear as the blue mind-prisms on Metebilis III.

He stared at the sealed door before him.

He tapped out a logic query in Third Zone lingua franca.

The computer answered him.

"The Colonist's supplies." He read aloud. "Well. So that's what all this fuss about the Fourth Charter's about, hmn?" He pressed his fingertip to his mouth in thought. "Very interesting. Very, very interesting. Now what would be so valuable that our friend Phix would be so eager to sieze possession of it? What would be worth such a large commission?"

There was only one way to find out.

Hearts pounding, the Doctor pressed the RELEASE code and leaned with all his weight. The metal protested, but his sturdy little body was the more determined and it gave way in a grinding groan of titanium and vapour-crystals. His breath puffed in the air, once, before his mind registered the deadly temperatures. Holding his breath, the Doctor clapped his silk handkerchief to his lower face and slipped into his Night Vision.

It was dark inside the vault, but the sensation of dread had never been so strong in this body. Not since WOTAN, when he looked down to find the hairs on the backs of his ancient hands standing up in a prescient horror of things to come. His eyes narrowed, searching, not yet ready to seek a light—

There. _There!_ A glimmer of something. Some flicker of illumination, perhaps?

He glanced back, satisfied that the door was too entrenched with ice and atmospheric snow to move without another wrestle. Handkerchief over his nose and mouth, he took a cautious step. His thin leather soles crunched snow-grains, from sand-fine to glassy pebbles. The floor was uneven; too much buildup of cold. How long before its last overhaul? Why wait? Over-frosted refrigeration units made for poor machinery.

There it was again. The glimmer was green, like a firefly's cold chemical lumenscence. Something else glittered here and there, but it looked like the dim reflections of ice-crystals on a lumpy surface. He stepped closer, listening with all his ears for the telltale hum of the Computer's coolant system, but everything was dulled in a coating of ice and snow.

The Doctor paused and knocked on a blocky sheet of ice. The wall. Too lumpy, too uneven. Too many thawing and freezing shifts. This was an intolerable example of shoddy thermodynamic engineering! Whoever was responsible for this—

Aha. He blinked down at the flickering green light. It was small, barely the size of his thumb-nail, and it looked like some sort of glyph.

He brushed his hand across the snow over it, and scowled to see he'd only cleared the snow that was hiding the thick plate of ice beneath. Or glass? Too cold to tell, and he didn't want to tell by tasting… He rapped the ice with the rim of his metal wristwatch, satisfied at the lack of an echo. Ice. That might possibly make it easier to work with…

He lowered himself on one knee so he could examine what he could of the glyph. Some sort of timing device. Small, though. Most Third Zoning Technology was not only built on triangles, it was a bit…well, pretentious. Probably a sad relic of their close-cultural ties with Gallifrey. Hmph. Well, he needed to figure out what this little fellow was; it would help him orient on where to go in this frozen maze!

Over his head a compressor kicked in, and a thick, fine rain of white snow glittered down.

"Oh, my giddy aunt." He grumbled under his breath. "If it isn't raining, it's snowing." Or something like that. He fished his predecessor's dignified old pocket-watch out of his pocket and snapped the lid open. A touch here and there, and the crystal lens was before his eye. Using the slight magnification, he frowned at the slowly-sharpening blur of glowing shape.

"Numerals, but not to this Time Zone…" He whispered. "Not even in this galactic zone." He held his breath and pressed his ear to the sheet of ice, eyes closed, straining to listen. He had to slow his hearts, which took too long, but he finally managed to pick out the lace-delicate thrum and throb of a timepiece assembled by a crystal that owed its birth to the Horsehead Nebulae.

"Wrong part of Mutter's Spiral. Altinak's crystal… there's no sense in using an incompatibly-charged time-piece in a ship…" The Doctor scowled, flipping the snow out of his dark hair angrily. "No sense. Unless this isn't part of the ship at all…"

He found another treasure in his pocket: The delightfully dangerous hydrogen smoking-lighter the Old Doctor carried (for defense more than for actual need). He found the settings by fingers and memory, and tipped the gauge up, ground his thumb deeply into the tiny flintlock wheel, and struck sparks into flame, flooding the frozen cavern into a single moment of clarity.

The numbers were not a Ship's Time-Piece.

They were a personal Time-piece designed for a humanoid wrist.

And the wrist was still with the Time-piece.

* * *

**Somewhere in Time and Space:**

Despite his exhaustion, the Brigadier had managed to keep up with the indefatigable alien through the labyrinthine twists and turns of the ice caverns. This was no small feat; the Doctor's body was bigger this time around, and his legs longer: a roaring giant who used his stride and coordination to good advantage. And he seemed as tireless in this bigger body as he had been in the first form the soldier had learned.

But the Doctor stopped without warning, and the Brig had damned near hit his shoulderblades with his face from the suddenness. A 'what is it?' almost escaped his teeth before his soldier's instincts kicked in: the Doctor was frozen stiffer than one of the icicles upon the cavern walls.

The Brigadier waited a moment, listening around the pounding of his heart as steam boiled off his warmer body but the other man was still not moving, not speaking, not doing anything. He was just standing there with his torch beaming off into the violet-blue space of the ice cave.

In the freezing mists, the Brig hesitated, his instincts honed keen for trouble. At least he slipped his weight to his right and leaned forward, peering over the taller shoulder. They were close enough in the darkness that he could smell the alien: ions after a storm, and late English roses blooming in the smoky twilight of autumn before the first frost.

"Doctor?" The Brigadier whispered. His eyes narrowed, peering into the gloaming, analyzing the landscape of ice-clad stones and boulders and Pleistocene-swallowed trees. A time capsule beneath the earth, nothing they hadn't seen before—

Something different about the lumps under the ice.

Different and wrong.

The human held his breath. Something glinted on the other side of the ice. Something shiny. Metal.

He gasped.

The Doctor was freed from the sound. He shook his head, unaware of the killing frost trying to settle into his wild, white thistledown hair. "Oh, dear." He whispered. "Dear, oh, dear, oh dear."

"Doctor!" The human grabbed his torch-free arm. "There must be hundreds of bodies!"

"Thousands, Brigadier." The Doctor corrected dully. "Humans. Silurians. Sea-Devils. Even some proto-Humans."

"But to what purpose?" The Brig hissed. He couldn't remember being so unnerved in his entire life, and that made him want to hit something. "Why all of these bodies brought here so carefully? Is it a tomb?"

"I wish it were, Brigadier." The Doctor was still using that horrid, flat, soulless voice. The Brig dearly wanted to shake him out of it.

And then he realized what the Doctor was saying.

Bodies in ice. If it wasn't a tomb, then they were in a cryovault of some sort, and if they weren't in a cryovault of some sort…

…they were in a larder.

* * *

**Somewhere in Time and Space:**

The Doctor flinched, almost dropping the deadly wire clenched in each hand. Before him Sarah and Harry stared, wide-eyed and battered.

"Doctor?"

Sarah.

"What are you waiting for?"

Images of dead Kaleds and Kaled mutants swarmed over his head like the mist the Time Lords had trapped him in.

Mist. Cold, just degrees from freezing.

Frozen men and women of Skaro, piled like firewood.

"Just touch these two strands together and the Daleks are finished. Have I that right?"

"To destroy the Daleks?" Sarah's small body shivered. "You can't doubt it."

* * *

**Somewhere Time and Space:**

The Doctor stares at the flaccid corpses, the ruin, the desolation. His memory is not something he always consults, but ever since Borusa's Game in the Death Zone, he seems to remember more about his past lives than he really ought.

Death looms in his memory—his collective memory—Silurans, Cybermen, Daleks, Kaleds, Rutans, Ice Warriors…over and over and over, a chain that stretches backwards in his personal chronology, but there's something terrible about the chill bodies before him, a glimmer of something terrible that he knows he must not remember, something too terrible and damaging.

"Did I succeed?" He whispers, trying to acknowledge the poor snuffed-out life of Vorshak.

"Yes." Tegan chokes.

"They're all dead, you know." Turlough is less irrepressible. The weight of the room—the gravity of the dead has stifled even his alien ethics.

"There should have been another way." The Doctor whispers.

* * *

**Somewhere in Time and Space:**

The Doctor hears Peri trying not to be sick, and for all of his cleverness, his infinite wit and _saeva indignato_, he has to admit that anything he could say at this moment would be altiloquence at its most offensive.

The dead of Miasmia Goria give no opinion as to how the newcomers are impressed. On a planet such as this, the only intruders are the living, unconsciously disturbing the dead.

And yet the most terrible fact is it seems somehow…that…impossible that it would be…he's seen this before. This endless vista of life-shattered skeletons, broken trees, the eternal churning of mindless factories, powered to last until the planet's resources are stripped to the last chemical reaction. The effluum of said reactions gently snow white, chilly ashes upon a bitterly cold landscape.

"Great sorrows cannot speak," The Doctor whispers, appalled at himself as much as what he sees. Why can't he react? Why can't he do more?

But there are no answers in this cold, barren corpse of a planet. Just snow and false precipitation and a psychic bitterness that empties itself into one's very soul.

* * *

**Somewhere in Time and Space:**

Ace is surprised into a shriek as the Doctor stumbles in mid-step over the dead of S'rax.

"I'm all right, Ace," He says wearily, but his voice is suddenly off.

"What happened there, Professor?" The girl worries about him, but there's nothing for it.

Behind them the Brigadier is coming up, heavy and patient with age—odd how the old soldier never seemed "patient" when he was young, but Time has a way of burning out the non-essentials, and this is a facet of the man the Doctor likes. He's unexpectedly clever when he has to be, and not for the first time he wishes he could have gone travelling with him just a bit longer…

Oh, right. That hasn't happened yet-

The Doctor bangs his temple with the heel of his hand, hoping to dislodge the thought. Very distracting to be able to glimpse those first eight dimensions simultaneously. Quantum thinking is really (horrors the sacrilege!) more suitable for human brains because humans (unlike Time Lords) generally know when to Stop. They have a built in "enough is enough!" failsafe that really, Gallifrey needs to examine.

"Yessss." The Doctor murmurs, each timed syllable of sound cautiously placed. His normally magnetic eyes are dark, turning inward. "Just a moment out of Time, Ace."

"What does that mean?" The girl asks with healthy and well-justified suspicion. "A moment out of Time? You're a flippin' Time Lord! How can there be a moment out of Time!"

Oh, Ace. He smiles at her, so strong and sturdy, she reminds him of another young girl of Long Ago, when he was a Doctor scarce recognizable from the Doctor he is today.

"Careful, Doctor." The Brigadier is dirty, battered, and a bit of flash-burn has given him a temporary sun-tan along one cheek. "I don't fancy walking across the field through this, but…"

"Quite all right, Brigadier." The Doctor says quickly. A bit too quickly. Ace is still too young and trusting. Not so the Brigadier, who trusts him but knows there are times in which trust has to go flying.

"Let's be careful." The big human rests his hand on the smaller people and gently presses them aside. "After all this, we needn't see either of you come to harm." He gives them both a stern look, and even Ace pauses in her quick protest. "I've survived too many friends, young lady." He says in a voice to match his demeanor. "I shan't survive two more today if I can avoid it."

"They're S'rax, not likely to keep bombs about them to explode after death. That would be dishonourable."

"Then you'll humour an old soldier on his last mission."

And the Brigadier quietly strolls forward, into the gently rolling fog. Before them lie the prostrate corpses of UNIT and S'rax alike, unified in death and freezing white chill.

"Goose on your grave, Doctor?" The Brigadier asks quietly, and absurdly, the Doctor knows somehow, that the Brig knows the Doctor is feeling this strange, suspension between Time and Worlds in this cold, white misty plain of silent dead.

"Probably a yeti," The Doctor shot back, and the old humor, the gentle pun, is a spark of warmth that blooms against the crushing cold.

* * *

**Somewhere in Time and Space:**

The Doctor stares at the steaming cup before his face. It crosses his mind that it is POSSIBLE that the High Priestess is waiting for a Specific Action, but he doesn't have it to give.

Really, you know, he ought to point out the silliness of the matter. He's older and wrapped heel to shin with laced-up footwear.

The smoking cup curls about his chin, and it carries the scent of utter terror with it. In the whiteness he sees half-remembered phantoms and coiling wraiths and Reality-spun webs of things long dead.

Karn is warm three months out of the year, including this portion, but a chill has leeched into his very bones. It is the chill of death, and the cup burns his hands, promising the deepest cold of all: The cold of death that makes him think of the Fields of Bone, and the crumpled, empty husks of life spent and tossed aside like carrion-dolls, side by side with the crushed ruins of Dalek shells and green spilt mutant writhing inside their metal pods.

* * *

**Somewhere in Time and Space:**

The War Doctor flinches backward, pulling his black woolen cloak about him against the rain. He can smell the drop in temperature. The rain will turn to sleet; then to snow.

He is not easy within his skin. His body is still fairly new…but that isn't the problem so much as what he's seeing. The freezing advection fog moves with almost a sentient intelligence, pulling at the frail warmth of torches and temple lanterns.

The dying race of the Roman Britons are unaware of this—or more likely, being Romans, they aren't going to give elementals the satisfaction of besting their morale. They are at a funeral after all, and all must be proper at a funeral.

He presses his back against the withering stone front of the Bath-house, and watches as the Funeral of Ghosts pass by: mourners clad in shrouds, beholding tall poles in their hands that support a death-mask of an ancestor to the House.

There are scores of these frozen, wax-coated faces of the dead mounted on poles, wrapped in linen shrouds as much as swirling fog.

It makes him feel colder than he ever wants to feel.

* * *

**Somewhere in Time and Space:**

The Doctor is confused.

He is about to step out of the TARDIS into the beckoning snowfall.

But something stops him.

Is it the cold, the whiteness?

The way the alien moons shine upon the endless plains of thousand-year glaciers?

He isn't sure.

But he listens to his instincts, and unlike some of his younger and less-responsible incarnations, he can admit when he's out of his depth.

He listens now. He steps back inside his TARDIS, and soon after goes to sleep because he's still utterly, fantastically exhausted from the after-shocks of the Time War. It took him centuries to attune to the resonation of his people's minds…and now there's nothing.

So…he sleeps. And he dreams of dead faces, frozen and mute and still asking for help under miles of pale blue ice. They look like humans, Silurians, Denisovians, Minyans…and Time Lords. Lots of Time Lords. Children.

The next day when he wakes up, it's to poke his head out of the TARDIS and find that the Illusion Field the Moroks threw over the TARDIS has cracked under the strain of the cold. There must be at least three thousand bodies lying in the bottom of the chasm just below the doorway of his Timeship. A mass grave for one of their more contemptible wars.

"FAN-tastic," he scowls down at the horror.

Resolve tightens his face. He glares at the cold tin-metal sky. The Moroks are going to be very, very sorry. He just laid genocide upon his own people and his oldest of foes. He isn't going to hesitate to place the law over the Moroks.

* * *

**Somewhere in Time and Space:**

The Doctor does not ever want to return to Midnight ever again, but he knows he must.

It's what the entity said, you know.

"_Oh, it was so cold."_

The Doctor is fundamentally terrified of going back, but someday he will.

_He's waited so long._

_In the dark._

_And the cold._

"_Bodies so hot…"_ The Doctor whispers to himself, and he hopes to Rassilon that Donna is not having one of her rare insomnia moments because this is _not_ a good time to come in on him. She's too good and seeing through him, too sharp at knowing what he's really feeling as opposed to what he's saying.

"_Bodies so hot,"_ he whispers again, burning every terrible second to his memory, as well as the name of the Hostess who gave her life to save all of them—to save him. He must not forget this…not ever, not ever.

"_Bodies so hot. With blood. And pain. The starlight waits. And the emptiness."_

But despite his noble intentions, a Noble finds him. Donna has always known him better than he lets himself know himself. And when she sees him bowed up on the floor by the Console, she doesn't have to speak. Speaking is ridiculous at times. She just kneels down and hugs him, warmth to warmth and friend to friend.

* * *

**Somewhere in Time and Space:**

The Doctor pauses in the middle of his strategic tactical advance in reverse.

What is it about those carnivorous snowmen?

Oh, but there's no time. Whenever he thinks about it, there's something about the cold and the snow and death at night that BURNS his memory. It makes him want to stop…and REMEMBER.

But he doesn't have time to remember.

So he keeps running.

* * *

**Somewhere in Time and Space:**

He's still running sporadic fevers from his recent regeneration and Clara's confusion is matching his own.

But his bewildered brain is telling him that waiting out here at night under the snowfall is an historically Bad Idea. A very, very Bad Idea.

He likes the snow. He remembers that.

But right now (wherever now is), it's not a good idea.

He listens to that part of his brain.

He returns to the warmth and the light.

Especially the warmth.

"Rheumatism," he mutters. "The cold always brings a touch of it out…" He stops, and remembers something…odd. Something…

A Museum. Being frozen. Awake and conscious in his brain, but to all appearances dead and inert of the body.

The Doctor shivers.

And seeks the warmth.

* * *

**Somewhere in Time and Space:**

Jamie McCrimmon yelps in shock and leaps forward, grabbing the solid little body before him. The Doctor is a dead weight, his snapping green eyes glassed-over and dulled, like the shade of apple leaves plucked and left to wither dead under the sun. He knows it is a risky thing, but he lowers the clever wee chappie to the frozen earth under the monoliths.

"Doctair?" The old Piper makes a rune of his name, prays that God enfold them into the Three, and cradles the limp body to his chest. Oh, Doctair.

Jamie's aged heart thumps in its chest. He doesn't feel like an old man tho' he looks it, and this is like those terrible days of yore when some deadly, unsainly thing was slavering after his friend.

"Och, Doctair." Jamie counts the steady, slow pulse beneath the skin of the throat, but the eyes are still open and flat, and the face slack. Even the Doctor's hair, that glorious, snow-white mane has tarnished under the shock of the alien light-beam.

His hearts are beating. That means much.

The Piper waits, clocking Time with his one single heartbeat. About them in the cold sere dawn of the planet, the Monoliths of Eternity loom about them.

Finally, a spark lights deep within those sea-jade depths, and the Doctor stirs with a groan.

"Oh…" The Doctor grabs at him. Holds him tight. "Oh, Jamie…" He breathes, and to the Piper's surprise, cradles him like a father to a son. "Jamie, I thought you were dead." He gasped.

"Aye, well, not just yet." Jamie makes light of it. "What happened, Doctor? Where did ye get tae?"

"Defense mechanism." The Doctor explains faintly. "A random program. You don't know what horrid memory it's going to pull out of you—you just know it's going to be a bad one!" He shivered all over. "Oh, that _was_ a bad one. I wouldn't be surprised if my otherselves felt an echo!"

The old Piper waits, but no more explanations come from the Time Lord.

The cold wind blows about them, two men, both alien to each other's species, small and old and white-haired. Against the monstrousness of the monoliths, they look like ridiculous contenders to the ancient evil inside it…and yet they are the ones who have gotten further than anyone else in the Universes.

And they have the best chance of defeating this particular brand of evil.

"We should keep going." The Doctor says at last.

"Aye." Jamie nods in relief. He may be older, but inaction has never gotten less uncomfortable for him. The nocturnal winds kick up, smelling of spice and death and old hunger. He grips the Time Lord's shoulder, feeling the warmth sleeping deep under the layers of battered old coat. Time Lord. The Doctor doesn't like to be called a Time Lord any more. But Jamie hopes that can be reconciled someday. Even if being declared a True Exile means being with Jamie, there's nothing as painful as being excommunicated from your people, and he doesn't want the Doctor to wear that scar.

The Doctor catches his breath, and puts his small hand over Jamie's. Arthritis wears their joints now, slows their reflexes. This is all down to a fight of mind and will. The Piper can hear the storm, oncoming.

They step together through the Gate to the Monolith.

* * *

**Somewhere in Time and Space:**

The Doctor's body is wearing thin.

He is cold.

Very cold.

It is difficult to hold on to himself, but he needs to; the TARDIS is calling him so strongly he can't disobey. She's never done this before...he's heard of this phenomenon, and a part of him is surprised and pleased at the proof of their bond. He hasn't treated her as well as he could; that sabotage with the mercury...hiding in primitive times where the technology wasn't there to help her repair and heal. Not to mention his body. He doesn't have the dexterity of his youth, can't perform the complex maintenance repairs she deserves.

But she doesn't hate him for it.

She's calling him, helping him, and he won't be going through his first regeneration alone. An awful relief swamps his soul and he strumbles in the ice and the snow. The storm is howling like Grim Death over his head, and the bitter snows cut at his flesh.

The dead rest below him, under his hands. Frozen still, ice-bleached of blood and white but not clean; never clean. Should the Cybermen have won...

He falls to his knees, gasping in pain.

Oh, this poor, poor body.

But if he's to be the Doctor, he must keep going.

He keeps going.

* * *

**Back in Time and Space:**

The Doctor slams the door of the freezer with all his power. His chest burns from the pressure of the extreme cold. It's nothing compared to the cold inside his hearts.

He hasn't been this terrified since he summoned the Time Lords. His legs are even shaking. The panic threatens to swamp him. He swallows hard, and frantically re-seals the lock on the door, then thinks twice and re-works the coding so the computer can't register that anyone ever looked inside it.

He's going to have to be very, very, very, very, very careful.

There's a very slight chance that these poor Colonists are actually salvageable. Slight—but there. That means he has to concentrate not on the obvious maneuver of exposing this terrible crime to the Galaxies, but on rescuing them.

He doesn't dare get caught.

There's plenty of room for one more in that freezer.


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter 8:**

**...is there greed behind your choice of eating? **  
**If yes, the mind that eats is not pure - be your choice vegetarian or not.**

**-Buddhist Philosophy**

* * *

**Gallifrey:**

"_Great Pythia!"_

No one objected to the blasphemy. There were moments in which Time Lords thought in unison. This was one of them.

Even Sardon could admit to horror at the blessedly brief sight of the frozen victims, and when the Doctor fled from the freezer with the speed of a light-gravity craft, a part of them was cheering him on.

Someone coughed. Sardon risked a glance to the two newcomers, Milvo and Ragnar. They shared his responsibilities with the TSS, and had been invoked to attend this increasingly-less-secretive-by-the-day meeting.

The two were unabashedly uncomfortable and no wonder. 99% of the time their job was to approve records for the slow-grinding Wheel of Bureaucracy. That sad 1% fell under today.

Milvo was shaking his head. The Arcalian had grown sleeker and plumper over the years of service, and his trademark sense of humor was conspicuously absent. Next to him Ragnar's newly regenerated form glowered. He had changed from skeletal and withered to skeletal and young. There really wasn't much difference.

Throughout the room there were various shades of discomfort at the view. The only one unaffected was Karnack, the technician. The crystals on her Royal Bara necklace had slipped to a delicate salmon color, proving she was absorbed in doing her job and not much else.

Goth tapped his chin thoughtfully. Even for a Prydonian, his thoughts were hooded. Sardon doubted even Ragnar knew what his House-mate was thinking.

The Council watched breathlessly as the Doctor slammed and re-locked the door, then frantically stopped long enough to program some sort of code into the wall.

"Get out of there!" Jokul whispered. "Get out of there, you fool!"

"He can't." Sardon hated the emotional breach of personal experience. He preferred to deal with lives from a distance, on the other side of his desk but so far he was dealing with this mess in a responsible manner. "He's covering his tracks. If they notice tampering they'll be suspicious."

"Can't we recall him?" The Patrex woman demanded. "Doesn't he have a Time ring? Sardon, this is too dangerous!"

"We cannot recall him at this time." Sardon said heavily. "Our power reserves are too low from the pinhole's damage. If we employ an unauthorized drain for an emergency recall it will raise questions."

A small sound like a spitting wire erupted from the machine. Karnack quickly placed her hand upon the top of the machine and pressed firmly. The sound stopped.

"Quite all right, my Lords and Ladies." The woman assured them with long-practiced calm competence. "This is an old machine, but in excellent condition. I should be able to operate for the next few hours with a few minor repairs as we go." She glanced thoughtfully at the screen where the little Renegade was free from his task and running like the Birds of Hell were at his heels. "Goodness, he can move." She muttered under her breath.

The observation was out of line but it thankfully broke some of the tension.

"We can only watch for now." Goth mused. "Perhaps this is to the better."

Even Sardon looked at Goth in puzzlement.

The tall Prydonion was now stroking his clean chin. He looked almost feline. "We are seeing evidence of a terrible crime. At worst this is a possible explanation for the missing beings. At best...It would indicate things are not all well in the Third Zone, would it not?" He lifted his eyebrows. "Perhaps it would be for the better if we paused and simply observed...and collected data." He read the mix of expressions correctly. "If we can pull our agent out in time, it will be all to the good of course. But I believe even our worthy agent would agree...proof of crimes supersedes all other matters of importance."

Sardon hated when he had to agree with Goth. Not just because this was one of those incredibly rare aristocrats that believed in doing things, but because the man was...untouchable. "It is true that the Third Zone is missing many of its people. Minyans and people of Karn and other former Colony-born folk of Gallifreyan blood. Perhaps this is the explanation. Or one of the explanations."

"I remember hearing about that from the TSS." Jokul said with narrowed eyes and hard chin. His gaze to Milvo and Ragnar was dark. "It was believed the pinhole was the primary source."

"If so, it will not take long to verify."

"This is a large area of space in which to monitor." Koredin complained to his region-mate.

"If this is what it looks like, we are observing something even more atrocious than the miniscopes." Nescan made a sign against the accidental invocation of misfortune (There was no superstitious mindset outside of Pythia as elaborate or tiresomely optimistic as Quantum mysticism).

"And as I recall, the Doctor was the reason why they were banned in the first place." Milvo agreed.

Of course Milvo would point out the contrary in any argument. It all reminded them that the Doctor was embarrassingly altruistic, and those people had their own, sticky motives behind every action. Noble and utterly untrustworthy when it came down to it.

Sardon hoped the conversation would nitre itself out on its own juices. Goth was clearly suspicious of something, but was it the possibility of Players? The Grey Lord didn't know. That worried and bothered him and threatened his composure. Prydonians were not forthcoming as a species—it was probably bred into them in the cradle somewhere between one's first pet rovie and brain-buffing tutorials.

_Players are annoying enough_, he reminded himself. _But if Goth is willing to sacrifice one of his own Chapter to an information retrieval...what is he really hoping to find?_ Such a fascinating and useful bit of data if true. The question would have to wait.

Karnack cleared her throat. The woman had permitted a shred of annoyance to crease her brow. "I will have to stay and monitor the Visualizer. Constant use may threaten the circuits." She patted the toolkit at her waist where replacement circuits were waiting.

"That is perfectly reasonable, Karnack." Sardon assured her. He hoped the presence of a high-functioning telepath would be enough to instigate _some_ decent manners.

And then they all fell silent, watching the drama unfold before the screen.

* * *

_**The Feathered Sun:**_

The Doctor was almost to the lift when the entire ship...shuddered.

FLIGHT PATH INTEGRITY VIOLATED.

FLIGHT PATH INTEGRITY VIOLATED.

The Engineer program must have sustained more damage from the pinhole than believed. The software guttered out, sputtered, and resumed in fits and starts, the mechanical voice faltering and over-compensating as it tried to report to Captain.

And Captain was silent.

Planetside, it would be misconstrued as an earthquake. The little Time Lord went flying as the gravity rippled in a pulse-wave. It took him straight off his feet and slammed him down, hard, to the polished metal deck. His cheek stuck to the smooth glasstic. Several marbles rolled out of his pockets from the impact and took off in all directions—only to roll back as the gravity-wave went from flow to ebb. The bag of jelly babies under his ribs was officially a fused lump of petrochemical byproduct and synthesized wood-pulp derivative dyes.

_Good thing it wasn't the usual gobstoppers or jawbreakers..._

Dazed, he was climbing back to his feet and stuffing marbles back in his deeper pockets when the next gravity-wave hit him between the shoulderblades and almost propelled him off his feet—thank Rassilon, his lower half was still in the normal gravity part of the room. He stumbled into the wall and hung on to its corners with his fingertips, happy to bruise himself if it meant preventing a more intimate bruising throughout his body. In his secret topit his favorite magnet, Zoe's makeup mirror, and Jamie's spare kilt-pin (a falcon's claw) tugged against his shirt from the pull and push of gravity.

His head was still ringing...

No, wait. It wasn't all ringing in his head...?!

He blinked, trying to filter out what was happening through the confusion of a very angry ship's computer.

Engineer had taken over for Captain.

BOARDING TRANSMISSION RECIEVED.

BOARDING TRANSMISSION RECIEVED.

BOARDING TRANSMISSION REJECTED.

BOARDING TRANSMISSION REJECTED.

BOARDING TRANSM-

(crackle) (pop)

Engineer's language program overrode itself and stopped speaking in the Third Zone Lingua Franca. It had stopped talking in the language of flesh. It reverted to its original language of Decimal Binary:

"**01110100 01110010 01100001 01101110 01110011 01101101 01101001 01110011 01110011 01101001 01101111 01101110 00100000 01110100 01101111 00100000 01100010 01101111 01100001 01110010 01100100"-1**

The Doctor cringed at the over-stimulating assault of numerical translation. He cringed again at another wave of gravity—this worst of all. He yanked at the wall command, trying to get the lift door open.

Nothing happened.

"Oh!" He exclaimed. "Come on, come on you stupid machine-" He risked bracing both feet on the floor with all his considerable energy and tugged, trying to manually open the trauma-stressed door.

**01001001 01001110 01000011 01001111 01001101 01001001 01001110 01000111 00100000 01000010 01001111 01000001 01010010 01000100 01001001 01001110 01000111 00100000 01010000 01000001 01010010 01010100 01011001 00101110 00100000 00100000 01000101 01010011 01010100 01001001 01001101 01000001 01010100 01000101 01000100 00100000 01000001 01010010 01010010 01001001 01010110 01000001 01001100 00100000 01101001 01101110 00100000 00110001 00110100 00100000 01000100 01000001 01010010 01001001 01001001**

"Incoming Boarding party?!" The Doctor yelped. This was looking worse and worse. "Fifteen Darii? Why that's no time at all! That's illegal boarding, or seizure...or...or invasion!"

Fifteen Darii was the 3Z equivalent of twenty minutes. It wasn't nearly enough time to properly activate the ship's protocols and possible quarantines.

He had to get out of here—preferably far away from the ship itself, but especially out of this room!

The little renegade stopped his futile tugging on the door, and glowered at the panel. He struck it with his elbow, making it pop partially out of its in-wall housing. Holding his breath in case the gravity hit again-

-like now-

"Oh, my word!"

He clutched a tiny groove just in time, which kept him from sailing halfway up to the ceiling. This spared him a nasty crunch when the gravity wave ebbed backwards, returning things to their statu. He hit the ground with a jarring of the teeth, but at least it was on his feet and not his face this time.

Refreshing his grip, he used his other hand to tap the panel off until it hung by a connector's cord. He prodded with his fingertips and found what he was looking for—or rather, the solution. Which wasn't his idea of efficient mechanical engineering.

"Negative ionic glass circuits?" He blinked at the row of neat little glass rods. "Who thinks of these things?"

The bald criticism went unheard and unheeded. He yelped and grabbed at the wall again, this time latching his toes to the edges of the sealed jamb. Somehow. It never ceased to amaze him how one could accomplish the impossible when they had no choice.

"All right, you..." He grumbled, and fumbled for his favorite silk handkerchief. Smashing his marbles into his hand he clapped the silk handkerchief over them and wadded it all up, rolling the little glass spheres inside the silk over and over. He counted the time as he did so, trying not to pay too much attention to the computer as it announced the incoming boarders.

**01010000 01010010 01000101 01010000 01000001 01010010 01000101 00100000 01010100 01001111 00100000 01000010 01000101 00100000 01000010 01001111 01000001 01010010 01000100 01000101 01000100**

"I will NOT prepare to be boarded!" The Doctor snapped at the ceiling. "It isn't MY ship!" He glanced down at his hand. "Aha!" With a tight grin he slapped his hand into the hatch of the lift.

The friction of the silk against the marbles had charged up the glass with positive ions. They struck the negatively-charged glass rods and forged an effective circuit. The doors opened so quickly the Doctor fell inside and flat on his back. The doors hissed shut; the ionic charge dissipated, breaking the circuit.

In seconds the lift was scrolling back up to its original deck.

* * *

Elsewhere from the Doctor, the crew and passengers of the _Feathered Sun_ were in a new panic.

The passengers were few in number—less than ten percent of the ship's active population. They had a civilian's view of the over-hyped and more colorful than truthful accounts of space pirates and corsairs.

It was no ill reflection on them that they had no experience with binary. It wasn't their fault their minds were not thirsty—or obsessive enough—to learn an "impractical" language.

To say they were unprepared was a simple way of summarizing the panic that ripped through the narrow corridors. All ages were represented in this unthinking hazard. Adult, child, and every age in between, they ran without rhyme or reason, and hurt themselves in the blindness. The crew, exhausted from the pinhole's attack and the endless repairs, was no match for their frantic and mindless fervor. In the madness people were getting hurt; getting killed was too real of a possibility.

Tokish was in the middle of the latest wave of chaotic group movement. Like a boulder, the civilians simply flowed around his powerful body, too fast for his attempts to stop –or at least direct some crowd control.

It didn't stop him from trying.

"Everyone!" He bellowed with the impressive force of his lungs. "Calm, please! We are working to-" A young male Centaurian bounced off his chest. Out of habit, the Pereleccan stopped what he was doing and steadied the boy, who simply re-joined the frightened crowd the moment his breath returned.

"Oh, this is awful." The alien muttered.

And lifted his hands, trying again.

* * *

The lift opened and the Doctor literally fell out.

Always sensitive to sound, his abilities had never been higher in this new body, and this was now putting him in a situation of 'too much of a good thing'. The blaring alarms were putting his nerves on edge, and they'd been nearly shredded by the collapse of the computer systems in the databases below. The mechanical shrieks blended all too well with the shrieks of the panicking passengers.

The terror in the air was thick and full of metal. The little Time lord felt his hearts lurch in his chest. He realized the trauma of the pinhole was still too fresh in their minds—and the crew had possibly been lax in keeping them informed.

He climbed to his feet just in time to be knocked aside by a knot of women and children.

"Oh, my word!" He huddled up against the wall, hand upon his chest.

It was just bad timing that the pressurized pain in his head returned.

* * *

_**Gallifrey:**_

"Does the Doctor have an illness? A disability?"

Goth's question was reasonable. Time lords—even bad ones—usually had some attempt to dignity.

"None that was identified or reported." Sardon answered truthfully. Because he was a Bureaucrat and accustomed to finding truth buried under piles of disguises, he found himself studying their technician.

Karnack was outwardly her usual calm and collected self as she kept her hand pressed against the Visualiser...but a sheen of sweat upon her brows belied that calm.

She must have felt his gaze. Her eyes lifted to his briefly, and it was a perfect card-player's lack of expression upon her countenance.

Sardon kept his own countenance. If his suspicions were correct...his work could suddenly become more fruitful.

Assuming the Doctor survived.

"_Oh, no...not again..."_ The Doctor winced and put up his hands to his temples. He swayed and staggered into the wall. A sensation of vertigo was mixing with the pressure under his skull. _"Who are you?"_ He asked out loud without meaning to. Karnack's face stayed exactly the way it was, but a drop of perspiration slipped down her remote face. Her necklace flickered, so quickly Sardon was certain the others missed it. He, however, had been looking for that to happen.

Somehow, Karnack's contact with the Visualiser, which in turn was tied to the Doctor's TSV, and was overwhelming him with feedback.

Sardon had no blame in his hearts for Karnack's silence. She had no idea what to say—who would? Sardon doubted anything like this had ever happened to her.

For that matter, to anyone. This was truly an interesting problem.

_She's only half-Gallifreyan. It could be her methods of filtering away her unprofessional, distracting emotions are being picked up by the Doctor._

He had a feeling he was right, but proving it was a different matter.

_It has to be his old TARDIS. It's a telepathic machine...he gets anxious when he's away from it for very long...who is to say how it's been slowly changing his neural pathways?_

On screen, the Doctor yanked his hands away from his skull and stiffened his spine, blinking rapidly in an effort to drive out the unwanted pressure hammering to get in. _"Stop it!"_ He hissed under his breath. _"Stop it right now!"_

He was talking to the source of the pressure, whatever it was, for there wasn't a hope of being heard over the ruckus.

"It must be some sort of mental attack," Milvo scowled. As an Arcalian he was better versed in the life sciences than most.

"There are many unknowns in this case, ladies and gentlemen." Sardon reminded them.

Karnack looked relieved that he was helping obfuscate her dilemma. Sardon briefly wondered at the depths of her emotional state. Telepaths held non-consensual mental contact with other beings—especially mentally less advanced beings—was abhorrent and criminal.

_Now that she believes she is safe...she just might relax. Let us see what she does..._

Karnack turned her head, and quietly adjusted a small, nondescript chip in the half-open maintenance port beneath the flickering image of the Doctor.

The doctor's head shot up. Despite the smallness of the images, there was no mistaken the look of relief on his expressive face.

But just as the pain and pressure melted away, he was struck from behind by a fresh wave of panicking civilians.

The first of the panicking crewmen were with them.

The Doctor went down in a flurry of bodies.

* * *

1Transmission to Board


	9. Chapter 9

**Gallifrey:**

Sardon had often privately observed that Gallifreyans didn't like to be described as xenophobic, but one had to call a heliotrope a Patrexes. Most of the time they never had to think of themselves and their role in the Universe. The vote to withdraw and abstain had been a majority ruling. The motive had been to share the guilt in the damage they'd done to other lives.

Some houses protested, of course. Lungbarrow and Redloom had been the more vocal ones in that dark history, arguing that to pull back was to effectively avoid responsibility. Despite the impressive arguments, even the awe-inspiring support of The Other hadn't stopped that overwhelming fear.

Without the social interaction, things began to change and not for the better, the dissidents swore. They later descended to become Shobogans—Gallifreyans with questionable genetic lineage and self-avowed Outsiders living on the fringes of society.

_We are out of practice, aren't we? _The Grey Lord mused._ Death has lost its sting. Achievement means less because the stakes are lower. Except outside our borders._

He watched the TSV with the others, observing with a growing discomfort the Doctor's struggles to save lives. Saving life was all well and good—but it was a hard thing to save lives that had no interest in saving yours.

The reaction to what they saw was again united. This time the emotion was a different sort of horror—a psychological one.

The Doctor went down in a flurry of screaming aliens whipped into a mob-like frenzy of fear.

They could do nothing but watch.

The stampede went on and on _and on_ across the screen. There was no sign of the scruffy little fellow with the infuriating, wide-eyed wonder and ruffled hair and Tellurian rags. Sardon's hearts lurched in a rare glimpse of pity, recalling the regrettable moments when the tiny Renegade had stood up to his authority with all the unthinking innocence of a child, and the well-wrapped cunning of a seasoned fighter.

_He was a terrible Time Lord but he always meant well and he didn't deserve to work so hard only to-_

"There he is!" Milvo yelped in relief. The Arcalian pointed frantically.

Rising out of the tide of a swarm of hysterics was a powerful, dark-skinned alien. He was not very tall, but he dwarfed the little figure hanging limp in his gigantic arms.

* * *

Tokish was exhausted.

This was a new sensation. Normally he never tired physically in the lighter gravity.

But he'd been operating without proper sleep when the pinhole struck, and there had been no time to rest since that moment.

Ever since the ship caught the latest transmission, Captain had been silent and Engineer had been—for a word—insane with fury. The intelligence programs were not equipped to fully recognize its capacity for emotion without backups, and that software was part of the pinhole's collateral damage.

It was all a perfect storm, he realized. They were under attack but this wasn't like any attack covered in his training. Whoever these scofflaws were, they had cut in a single, swift stroke, deactivating the _'Sun's_ security systems.

Freighters were designed to defend themselves, but they were not meant to withstand concentrated attack.

Tokish had been caught up in the swarm of hysterics early on. It had been his hope to divert the fear that was pumping through the vulnerable psyches around him, but he was a Pereleccan and therefore insignificant despite his high intelligence and excellent technical skills. So he worked with the crowd, moving in their stream, and putting out his arms or stepping strategically to the side here and there, slowing them down as best as he could. A few of the other crewmen tried to do the same thing, but the fervor of the people had to spend itself out before they could stop them.

And then the lights started to flicker.

They had been in the middle of the deck, one of the safest places during an attack, and...

The lights blinkered. Half the corridor went out.

The people trapped inside the darkness paused only long enough to change direction and they stampeded back to the illuminated portions of the ship.

And they were all the way into the Third Deck when the lights went out again.

Again the mindless crowd responded. It was run to the lights or die, trampled by their loved ones.

The third time it happened, they had but one choice on where to go.

The very belly of the deepest part of the hold.

_We're being herded like fish into a killing-tank._

The Pereleccan shivered. Tokish had no power or ability to break free from the crowd. He was strong but he was not as strong as a wave of five hundred crewmen plus their passengers.

* * *

Tokish easily found Phix. The tall Ancel'ak was staggering back and forth, using his long, willowy limbs in a vain effort to settle the others. His delicate form was terribly worsened from the mob: bruises mottled his pearl-colored skin into a dirty stain and he limped in pain.

"Tokish!" He saw his friend and crew-mate. "Thank the Nine Planets!"

"What's going on?" Tokish yelled in his own language, shifting the small form in his arms. The Doctor groaned, distracting him for a moment, but the little fellow went limp again, his green eyes closed. "Phix, what did you do?"

"Do? I d-don't know what-"

"_I can hear Binary, Phix!"_ Tokish' dark face was twisted in agony. "What you did..!"

"We can still finish this!" Phix babbled. "It will be all right! We'll explain to the People of Heed the problems in communications. They'll take their property and go!"

"Beings are not property!" Tokish protested in a half-roar. "You're killing them!"

"_They were dead when I went to collect them!"_ Phix shouted at the top of his lungs—thankfully still in the Pereleccan Vulgar Tongue as the ignorant crowd slowly milled back and forth in confusion. "I swear to you, Tok! I went to collect their properties for delivery and-" The ship trembled in digital pain. "They were dead in their cryochambers! The readings were all unresponsive!"

"That didn't mean you should falsify the readings!" Tokish exclaimed. The horror of what the computer was telling him hadn't completely soaked in. For now he was still hanging on to the legal ethics. "Just for a Cargo-bounty—Minyos Wept, Phix! How could you-?! It's Dead-theft!"

"I-"

"_You found the Colonists frozen in cryostorage and sold their corpses! You sold the corpses! You...Put their things up for the reward and made us complicit with the ship's shares! Engineer is telling me everything!"_

Phix shook his head wildly. "No, they were all dead! Computer systems failure! Everyone passed away in their sleep! Man, Woman, child! All Dead!"

"No technician is unqualified to make that assessment!" Tokish was openly crying.

Phix writhed. "I had no choice! The People of Heed were coming to Tithe my planet! If I didn't offer them something they wanted...they would-" He choked and clapped his hand over his mouth.

Tokish gasped. "What? How?!"

"The elders contracted them for labor and when it was over they demanded payment for all their people killed in the line of duty. There were hundreds! They've been demanding that the same number of our people give themselves up! I thought if—if-if-I offered them twice that number of people in cryostorage they'd take them and leave us alone!"

"Oh...Phix." Tokish' face crumpled. "They could have appealed to the Court of Nine Planets!"

"We couldn't-"

A fresh groan of pain took their attention. The Doctor was trying to wake up.

* * *

"Oh..." The Doctor ground his teeth. His head..!

Parts of his regeneration were lost to the lindos—thank Rassilon! But there remained an unfortunately vivid recollection of when his heart broke apart in mitosis, jostling aside and shifting his organs until his binary cardiovascular system was complete.

He'd often wondered by Time Lords, who were traditionally very much in love with the sound of their own words, kept to "it hurts" in describing this process.

It was because the phrase, 'It hurts' was the _only_ way to describe what it felt like. It was either oversimplify...or fall into a valley of descriptive madness.

Right now his mind was going through an extremely painful process that was reminding him all too much about the dividing of his heart. Brains weren't supposed to feel, but his didn't know that! He clutched his fingers deep into his unruly hair and writhed, unaware anything else.

"_Stop it!"_ He shrieked. _"Stop it! Stop it!"_ Where was this coming from? Why was it happening? Was this mischief from the Players? Was Sardon right after all?

"Doctor..."

He opened his eyes through a gummy curtain of migraine. The Ancel'ak was peering over him, his pale face burning with worry.

"It's all right, sir." The alien soothed, and tried to calm him by smoothing his hair away from his brow. As usual, attempts to manipulate his hair met with failure. "We're here...we're here...don't worry..."

The Doctor blinked wearily, trying to wake up without looking as though he was really awake. If there was ever a good time for deception tactics, this was it.

"He's hearing something outside of our spectrum," Tokish told Phix. For now they had agreed to bury the quarrel. They felt some mutual guilt for welcoming the little fellow on to their ship-he didn't deserve to suffer anything after rescuing them.

"I think you're right, but between the two of us, we ought to be able to hear so-"

Heed. People of Heed. The Doctor latched on to the problem like a dying man for water.

"Concentrate!" He panted out loud. "One thing at a time! One thing!"

Phix had been dealing with the People of Heed, and for something corrupt if they didn't want to take their legal problems to the courts. The Court of Nine was the most respected legal body in the entire Third Zone...and beyond! Why was he afraid? Why was Tokish horrified?

Why did that sound familiar...and not in a good way?

There had to be something...

Exhausted, his eyes slipped shut.

"_Ra-Om Ga-Om..."_

Tokish glanced down, then stared at Phix in fresh worry. The little man's eyes were closed and his countenance was relaxed as if in deep sleep.

But he couldn't imaging anyone _chanting_ in their sleep.

"_Ra-Om... _

"_Ga-Om."_

"What is he doing?" Phix mumbled.

The Doctor didn't respond if he heard.

He just kept chanting, his voice low and soft and musical.

"_Ra-Om..._

"_Ga-Om."_

The Ship guttered in a grinding wave of metal upon metal. Binary code filled the speakers.

Tokish went almost as pale as Phix, his broad face tilted up in sickened terror.

"What is it?" Phix whispered.

"They're coming." Tokish choked.

* * *

Two hours passed.

The mob had clustered into a huddled mass of meek submission. They wanted water and food and wound-dressing. Their fight was gone, and they were calling for lost friends and family—the surviving crew didn't have the heart to tell them those missing people were likely crushed to death under their feet in the panic.

Phix paced restlessly back and forth, his sensitive Ancel'ak nerves stretched to boiling point. He had decided to place himself before the Heed and argue for all the lives on the ship.

That it was dire and most likely hopeless was besides the point. His conscience was too heavy.

Tokish watched him, unable to give any word of comfort. Desperate men do desperate things, and Phix had been desperate indeed.

"I've got to try." Phix muttered.

"I'll stand with you." Tokish promised.

Phix trembled. "You may not want to do that." He swallowed hard. "If they're angry enough they'll..." He swallowed again. "They'll go for my people any way. Hunt us down like beasts and..." He couldn't finish. He looked away.

* * *

Overlooked (which was just how he liked it), the Doctor continued to lie unmoving upon the floor, his nonstop, soft chanting almost soothing in the monotony.

Padmasambhava's lessons on accessing his past were about to show value.

The mantras were designed to access one's past lives, but as a Time Lord, the Doctor suspected the distinction was a fine one. Buddhism had a lot of similarities with the spiritual science on Gallifrey. The older the Doctor grew, the more he was seeing parallels.

No matter what regeneration he wore, his brainwaves would (or should) remain the same. That meant the energy of his thoughts just needed to know where to go. That was the difficult part; _a TARDIS-born Time Lord's brain was often like a TARDIS_: unused or unneeded portions went to storage (and even jettisoned). And when one needed to find that particular memory-room...well...even the Doctor had been forced to take long, long, scenic walks inside the TARDIS until he finally came to his goal.

Memory accessed.

People of Heed.

Heed. Third Zone Regional Formal Language.

Ancel'ak Dialect.

Translation: Gum.

Gum. Translation:

Palate.

TARDIS translation:

Gome. Old English for Heed, attention.

People of Heed.

People of Gome.

Gum.

Gum. Translation: Palate.

The Doctor began to shake as the words flittered about his mind.

Gum.

Third Zone.

People: In the Ancel'ak language, male until proven otherwise.

People = Men.

Men of the Palate.

Andro: Man

Gum: Palate.

Androgum.

_Androgum_.

_**Androgum**_.

The hatch crashed open.

Phix stepped forward, his long arm outstretched in a placatory greeting.

Phix was naturally tall, and the only being standing. He took the stunning-beam from the invaders full in the chest, and being an Ancel'ak his hypersensitive nervous system instantly shut down from the shock.

Phix died, screaming once in a high-pitched wail that matched the lofty coils of smoke rising from his delicate body. It was long and loud and the Doctor wanted to clap his ears tight against the sound but he couldn't ignore the passing of a life for his own selfish comfort.

If Phix had not died from his higher physiology, he would have from the next wave: a clot of gas-grenades floated in on a drone program and collapsed into the air, releasing an odorless sedative. There were six other Ancel'ak in the Emergency Hold. They died without knowing it.

The Doctor shut down his respiratory bypass and watched helplessly as the three hundred lives around him collapsed into a passive state. They were alive and conscious but completely docile to the effects of the gas. There was no time to save any of them. He couldn't even save himself.

He could only hope to buy time.

Time was all a Time Lord really needed.

"Tokish." He rasped. "Tokish!"

The huge alien blinked, already sleepy from the gas, but his physiology was fighting it off. Gases, mostly toxic, were a natural hazard of his planet.

"Pretend you're quite stupid and do what they say. Pretend you're just a mindless drone and-" The doors were opening the rest of the way. "I'll try to get to you with a plan. But for now, stay with the people. But don't let the Androgums know you're intelligent!"

Tokish proved he was listening by nodding blankly instead of speaking.

The little Time Lord let his head drop back to the floor meekly. He controlled his breathing, shutting off his respiratory intake. He wasn't certain of the gaseous clouds' chemical composition, but he suspected it didn't matter. The sheer number of canisters suggested the vapour would be lighter than the nitrous-oxygen atmosphere, and dissipate quickly.

He waited quietly, hoping this improvisational technique would work.

Near him Phix' corpse stretched ghoulishly across the gleaming glasstic floor. Inches from the Doctor's face, his own was still etched with a mild expression of surprise.

"You fool." The Doctor whispered. He could barely speak.

"They would have never accepted your devil's deal." The Doctor risked a moment and blinked through a film of sweat as blurry shapes marched in, weapons drawn.

"Oh, you poor, poor fool." The Doctor said softly. "Androgums like their food fresh."


	10. Chapter 10

Twenty-seven Androgums strode in. Even if they hadn't disabled and demoralised the hundreds of Third-Zoners, they would still be a match for the untrained fighters. _And_ they had weapons. Cutlery hung from their belts as easily as the energy-rifles hung in their arms.

The Androgums were unknown. There were no clan-sigils upon their clothing; their tams had no feather or plume or claw to mark their social identity or even their status. This was frightening; social restriction controlled these people more than anything else.

They had many large warty excrescences. All Androgums had them; it was natural to their high-radiation planet. But many stood for proof that they had eaten the DNA of other species.

Intelligent species were not guaranteed to be intelligent eaters. Limited only by their desires, they tended to eat anything they chose—and did. That meant they were generally full of more toxins and diseases than other species. It was these abnormalities that created the cosmetic alterations.

The first one was the largest. Something of the color palatte of his clothing suggesting a Quawncine Grig but there was a peculiar badge upon his chest that looked like the outline of a Harpy Eagle swooping down upon its prey. If a Harpy Eagle could look _much_ less friendlier and hospitable than the image the Doctor could discern. It was the most ferocious visage he'd seen since getting briefly getting trapped up a tree in Dimetrodon territory.

He was an absolute _bear_ of an Androgum—one of Jamie's childhood myths of Hairy Men come to life—and he was almost as hairy. His brow was pronounced with lumps—some of which were pierced with gem and metal studs. A fight-flattened nose spread over the middle of his face. His beard was red and sparse around a webwork of scars and the thin spots were thickened with the vanity of many large beads—_bone_ beads. A curved bone abstract pierced each lobe. His eye—for the right was wrapped in a blood-red eyepatch—was small and clever, his lips prepared to curl in disdain or cruelty. They curled now, observing the cowed and terrified people huddled helpless upon the floor.

"You can cut the fear with a butter-knife," he announced by way of greeting. The voice was deep and thick, as if long unused. His eye flickered deep in its socket to examine his prey. "It radiates from them, thick as flower pollen."

But then that dark, glittering eye fell upon the Doctor. In a swirl of weapons and battle-dress he bent, frowning. His large, wide mouth split into a grin of thick lips and gums.

"Well, what have we here?" He rumbled. He bent slightly to peer at the prone Time Lord. The Doctor flinched away, and could not hide the wince.

"Wounded?" The big Androgum made a sound that would have been almost avuncular. "Well, let's see about that." As lightly as plucking a flower, he reached down and pulled the Doctor up by the wrist. The little fellow dangled with his toes inches from the floor.

"Put me down!" He snapped indignantly.

The one good eye gleamed. "Oh, we are a lively one, aren't we?" He chuckled. "Not sedated like the others...and you smell different. Mmmmn..."

"Did you hear me?" The Doctor exclaimed. He reached up, tugging futilely to free his wrist from the heavy wart-studded paw. "You have no business being on this ship!" He persisted at (almost) the top of his lungs. "I suggest you pack yourselves back up and go back to whence you came!"

Normally, Androgums were simple folk. This is not to mean "simple" in the sense of say, Jamie's people, who _chose_ to live simply because an harmonious approach to life was a healthy and spiritual philosophy that was good for the limited resources of their land as well as good for others. Or Zoe's definition, which meant, "incontrovertible evidence," or Victoria's, which was "the point presented in as few words as possible" (She liked Alfred Hitchcock for a reason), or Ben and Polly, who wanted nothing more from the Universe than for red to stay red, and blue to stay blue.

Androgum "simple" meant they were very single-minded and within their own interests. This meant they normally responded only to the Alpha Wolf approach—he (or she if she could grow over 2 metres in height) who shouts the loudest and stands the firmest ground is the one who Gets Things Done.

Unfortunately, Androgums are, on occasion...not simple.

"Oh?" The huge alien lifted him even higher, until he was a disconcerting distance from the floor. "Now I might be impressed by that show of courage, little one. But you aren't speaking for these people, are you." The thick lips warped in a horrible pumpkin grin as he nodded at the drug-stupefied people. "You have no authority to speak for them. You are a passenger, and passengers do not speak for the crew. In fact, no one speaks for the crew. They follow the orders of a soulless metal machine."

"I am a Time Lord!" The Doctor projected every ounce of his considerable willpower into that statement. "I am speaking on behalf of every being on this craft as an investigator of the temporal anomaly that caused this ship to founder out of its flight path!" He tugged again at this living manacle about his wrist. "And I say, let me go and get yourself back on your ship!"

"A Time Lord...Master Brasher?" A nearby Androgum male murmured in a mixture of fascination and worry. It was the fascination part that alarmed the Doctor.

"Yes, I know." Brasher never stopped smiling up at his little prize. "I knew it as soon as I saw him. One develops a..._nose_ for these things with age, my good Larch." He pushed his head a little closer and took a noisy sniff with wide, flaring nostrils. The beads in his beard rattled. This close, the Doctor could see they were scrimshawed with...oh, dear. _Names of the original owners_.

"Interesting bouquet." He noted. "Not past its prime yet, good, solid muscle..." Another sniff. The Doctor kicked him in the belt, but it might have been a child's tap for all the notice given it. "Well now that is a bit odd, isn't it?" He leaned his head back to look at the Doctor with a sudden increase in..._interest_.

"Most of you people are...I _do_ beg your pardon...soft and...well, insipid." Brasher slipped a look to his assistant and coughed with surprisingly delicacy at the indiscreet topic. "You have a flat tastelessness about you and a limp texture from an idle lifestyle, I'm embarrassed to say. A self-domesticated species to be sure, but _you_ have a..." pause to sniff again, this time longer and drawn out. The Doctor's flesh crawled and he began struggling in earnest.

"Yes, unusual." Brasher whispered, and to the Doctor's horror, the Androgum began to drool. "You're a wild thing, aren't you? A feral Time Lord, running free from those boring old husks gathering dust on your home world. You're a _renegade_." He tutted. "Not the usual fare at their table, are you?" He paused to wipe his mouth. "Well, _well_." He turned to show the still-struggling Doctor to his apprentice. "This is what a _real_ Time Lord would be if they followed a natural lifestyle, free from their artificially induced environment! As you can tell, the product is far superior to those—ahem!-battery-farmed beasts living under their force fields. Normally the best one can do is settle for the tempered flesh of the common-stock Gallifreyans. It isn't the same, I regret. Time Lords are a revolting example of flaccid indulgence. And yet, as the pinnacle of their species, they should be the most flavourful!" He shuddered at the atrocity. "Why, they don't even get enough natural ultraviolet to manufacture secosteroids! They have to metabolize their calcium through..._additives_." The last word was clearly a vile oath. "And I don't mean by eating dairy or snacking on the occasional strip of dehydrated skin, either!"

"Let them go." The Doctor spoke through his teeth.

"Let them go?"

"Yes. The living and the ones in that so-called cargo hold that you have no right to possess!"

"Oh, but their being alive is just a technicality." Brasher grinned, releasing a cloud of meat-rancid breath. "They won't be alive for much longer...what is it you Time Lords like to say...'Time is relative?'" He laughed at his wit, and playfully tapped the Doctor on the end of his nose.

The Doctor snarled, caught up in the alpha-pheromones of might makes right. He only just barely holding back the urge to bite the Androgum. Common sense warned this would be _profoundly_ stupid—there was no knowing where that hand had been. Or what was in its makeup! For that matter...who?

Brasher chuckled in delight. "Worth the trip over here, it was!"

"Master." A new Androgum scuttled up and bowed. "All of the Ancel'ak are dead. The gas must have shocked their nerves."

"They are a frail race. Weak creatures, but a marvelous fine marbling to the meat and the marrow-bones are particularly juicy." Brasher shrugged. "The rest?"

"They are all appropriate. At least half are injured in some way."

"Go through them with the other Francines—and get the younger Gercines. It's time they took on some adult responsibility." Brasher dandled the Doctor up and down a moment, testing his weight and mass. "Little but unusually dense." He noted. "Cull the ones that can't be walked back to the ship. We'll serve them up with the Ancel'ak tonight."

"Master! Yes, Master!" The Apprentice glowed.

"And make sure Azdown does what I say!" Brasher suddenly barked. "He's been drooling for immature meat for weeks—don't think I don't know his habit of killing pups before they reach their prime!" He shook his head and passed a final, baleful look at some of his crew before looking back at the Doctor (who was contemplating a new level of horror).

The Doctor caught his gaze and returned it with an expression of pure hostility. Never un-intimidating when he wanted to be, the Doctor had spent too many years perfecting the force of his personality on various and sundry, well-deserving morons in yellow robes.

"You could still leave." He told Brasher quietly.

Brasher smiled. "You're a brave little one." He approved. "It's been a long, _long_ time since I had a decent Time Lord at the table." He chuckled. "The Grigs would be honored with you." The eye slid to a crafty black. "If they deserved you."

"So you've eaten Time Lords." The Doctor didn't show how that affected him. He wasn't the only Renegade out there in the Universe, and his contact with his own, fellow Time Lord Renegades were rare and often terrifying (Flora Millrace being an exception), but there were a few—a very few—of his people who were innocent of wrongdoing, and left for reasons as morally defensible as his own. "How many?"

"Not nearly enough." Brasher confessed with a sigh. He held the Doctor's weight in one hand easily, as though holding a cluster of grapes. "They're a difficult species, prone to too much cleverness. The arrogance is amusingly refreshing, though. It's always good to be able to...see the humor in one's superiority, don't you agree?" And he chuckled again.

"Master." A new Androgum ran up and bowed from the waist down. His clothing was rougher and plainer-cut. "We have the codes. The cargo will be T-Matted to our hold in less than thirty minutes."

"Excellent." Brasher never looked away from his quarry. "A successful mission all around...bring the nullifying clamps, Serrate." He looked at the Doctor carefully. "The ones sized for juveniles. That ought to be a decent fit." He looked past the Doctor to the hulked-over Tokish and made a tsk'ing sound. "We'll need the jumbos for that one."

"Don't hurt him!" The Doctor renewed his struggles, much to Brasher's amusement. "He's of no interest to you! He has the mind of a child! All he knows is obedience!"

"Oh?" Brasher looked at the quietly sitting alien. "You. What is your name?"

"Tokish, Master." Tokish spoke slowly through the lingering sedative.

"Tokish," Brasher smiled and held the Doctor in front of him. "Be a nice fellow, would you, and hit this Time Lord for me. Hard as you can."

The Doctor sucked in his breath. "No...no, no, Tokish!"

Tokish rumbled to his feet, a vague and confused look upon his face. "But I don't know _where_ to hit him, Master."

Brasher thought that was just hilarious. He laughed. "Try the belly."

Tokish pulled back his fist in slow motion.

The Doctor held his breath, tightened his abdomen with one of Ben's old tricks about Houdini, screwed his eyes shut, and hoped it would be quick.

Three seconds later he was flying through the air, tossed over Brasher's shoulder in dubious safety while Tokish' balled-up fist met empty space.

"You big, bloated-up idiot!" The little Time Lord shouted to mask his relief that Tokish had been smart enough to go through with the game. "He could have killed me!"

"So I see." Brasher was still laughing. "Tokish, sit down. You will walk with the rest of the people to the Holding-pens.

"But...Master..." Tokish blinked, hurt. "I didn't hit him."

"That's all right." Brasher soothed. "I'll give you another chance later."

"Yes, Master."

The Doctor twisted his head to glare down at the Androgum. "Im dongay ollik parl..." He swore in Old High Gallifreyan. That was really telling him.

(The TSV shut down in shock for an entire half-second.)

"I _do_ hope you don't smile at your mother with _that_ mouth." Brasher reproved. Not that he knew what it was, but he knew the taste of a true insult when it was aimed at him.

By this time, the lackey had returned with the sized manacles.

The Doctor's hearts sank to his pelvic cradle at the sight. They were padded so the wearer could not hurt themselves with contact or struggle. Although he didn't know it yet, the overloading of telepathic feedback through the TSV was capable of working both ways; just not as well.

Confinement was, and always would be, a horror for the little Time Lord. It was a natural part of his personality and all of the Doctors carried this...but it was particularly strong in this incarnation.

It mixed badly with his hyper-acuity.

Sardon was mostly correct in his secret assessments. The TSV was combining with Karnak's close-approach abilities, and feeding the focused attention of all the Time Lords in the room directly into the little renegade.

But he did not know that Karnak was about to receive a feedback from the Doctor. And he would not know because Karnak's natural gifts would absorb it.

* * *

_**Gallifrey:**_

Karnack gasped, feeling for a moment as though the manacles were clapped over her own wrists. Not a Time Lord, she flushed to be caught out of perfect control, and her features over-compensated with a bone-white pallor. Holding her breath, she pressed one hand against the vulnerable circuits exposed in the panel. Her other hand poised an electrical solder like a ferocious weapon.

"I beg your pardon," she apologised...and with the solder...attacked the naked machinery.

* * *

_**The Feathered Sun:**_

It was co-incidence that saved the Doctor.

Just as the awesome pressure returned to attack his skull, the dismissed Androgums returned to the Deck in a high-pitched scream of metal upon metal as the door-housing growled and grutched upon the friction. Sparks glimmered in the half-light.

It hurt.

The Doctor cried out, clapping his hands over his ears.

"Sensitive, are we?" Brasher was pleased. "A sign of refinement. Oh, we'll have to be careful and plan with this one!" He chuckled and patted the little Time Lord on the back. "Now, Apprentice," he smiled grandly. "I'm off to the Inspection Room. Meet me there when you're finished."

Serrate bowed from the waist. "Yes, Master."

"Oh, and be certain to wash your hands. It's time you learned how to inspect Gallifreyan meats."

"Sir! Yes, Master!" Serrate drooled.

The Doctor could not hide the lurch in his hearts.

Brasher growled, a horrible sound of laughter deep in his huge throat. He adjusted the little Time Lord across his shoulder as easily as a toddler; the Doctor struggled for calm despite the horror threatening to swamp his control into full-blown panic.

"Easy, Little Time Lord." The Androgum rumbled. "No one's going to eat you…yet."


	11. Chapter 11

_**Gallifrey**_:

"We can't just watch!"

"We can...and we will."

Goth's cold voice washed over them like a winter-sandstorm: Freezing and de-fleshing at the same time.

Even Sardon was unable to hide his confusion. He noted that Ragnar (dour as ever) looked only tired, as though he was about to hear something that was familiar, old, and somewhat stale.

The huge Prydonion remained calm. "We have too many delicate events, Lords and Ladies. These events have the potential to become Events." He pronounced the more vital connotation without breaking a sweat, but several blinked.

"To begin with," he ticked points off his fingers, "The pinhole is not what it seems. The Doctor was very clear about that—though his determination to solve that particular mystery may have to be...postponed for now. It remains to be seen if he is right about the pinhole possessing awareness, but if he is right the foolishness will be upon our own cuirass if we ignore it and are proven wrong. I don't need to remind you all that it never will do if we are caught being less aware than one of our..." He paused just slightly, substituting 'prisoners' for 'men in the field.'

(Sardon rebelliously wondered what would happen if he locked the Doctor and that overbearing orange giant in a broken lift for a few hours. The imagined possibilities were breathtaking)

"Said pinhole was—we believed—the main factor in the missing beings among the Third Zone. Now we can posit this remains the most logical conclusion—after all, even though we are Time Lords, our awesome powers are up against a large amount of space and we have but limited power even in the best of Eras with which to go searching. Because of this, we need to pursue every thread in this tapestry.

"Secondly, there is the problem with the _Feathered Sun_ itself. What if the pinhole had succeeded in destroying the ship? What would have been her eventual fate? The Temporal Forensics Examiners need to pursue their investigations into the Probability Streams. I am aware this is a unique dedication to detail, but this is a unique case.

"Thirdly—the use of the ship to smuggle the dead to Androgums? Once we can look past the grostequeries inherent in the situation, we can see there is much more to be investigated: The Ancel'ak species is not known for being overtly individual. There was a motive to his reprehensible crimes.

"Fourthly—a simple scanning will tell if the "dead" Colonists are merely "dead"-they could yet be revived and since the entire mission's language was written to spare lives and prevent the further loss of lives, we have that duty.

"Fifthly," and at this point even Goth looked as though he were getting tired from listing all the points, "The Colonists' home world will have to be alerted in any case. Does anyone know what world they were colonising—or what their homeworld even was? No? We need to find out before we come bearing the bad news! That will require delicacy as we are a politically and morally neutral party, even though-

"Sixthly..."

Sardon's eyes tried to glaze over in a self-protective instinct. He mastered himself with an effort of self-control that would have made a Cerulean proud.

"Sixthly," Goth persisted, "It leads us to ask the question: _If there is one ship of missing Colonists, are there others?_ There are too many missing lives in the Third Zone!" He sniffed once, annoyed at the complications. "The Ancel'ak's murky dealings may not be the only such murky dealings."

"Surely the Androgums are the primary cause," Ragnar looked ill. The name of the race was a pollution to those who eschewed flesh and fruit.

"We know them for _one_ cause, and that is only by accident. Despite their sterling reputation in butchery, we cannot presume they are the only sources for this problem." Goth paused and looked momentarily drained. "As complex as this is, we cannot spare the power required to maintain the equipment that would let us all be everywhere at once."

"Even before the pinhole, we did not have that much power available." Milvo agreed. His usual humour was dampened. "If we overextend our budget, we will draw unwanted attention to our actions."

"Bad enough those Insurgents..." Someone muttered, and there were many fingers twisting in an aversion of fate.

"Discretion is an increasingly slippery slope," Sardon pitched in calmly. "With the shadows of rebellion drawing nearer to the High Council, we can at least collect as much accurate data as possible."

"And that means leaving the Doctor to his own devices...at least for now." Goth was leaning back in a very Imperial pose of calm nobility.

Leaving Sardon to pick up the reins of power after they'd been spat on. Again. Sardon was used to it.

"We'll take actions to pull him out if things get hopeless." The Grey Lord told the rest. "If I know the Doctor—and I claim to know him as well as anyone else can—he cannot be trusted to behave even in his captivity. He will cause the Androgums great trouble as soon as he is capable. That will at least allow us some time in order to quietly find some answers. In the mean time, we will keep him under watch with the TSV."

"Did you just say you trust the Doctor?" Ragnar blinked.

"My word, no." Sardon laughed at the thought. "I trust him to cause trouble! He will not behave in captivity. He never has, and he never will."

"I thought he was behaving with us rather well." Goth frowned.

"With us—yes. He needs us as much as we find him of use. The Androgums are under no such agreement." His wry smile melted. "We heard a claim, possibly scurrilous bragging, of Androgums eating Time Lords. If I know a pulsar from a pandak, I'm telling you the Doctor will get to the truth of this for himself."

And that was the frightening part, the last bit that Goth didn't want to dirty his hands with listing, so he'd left it to Sardon.

If Brasher had eaten Time Lords, he had eaten either Time Lord renegades like the Doctor...or Time Lords in secret missions or placed in protective hiding.

Either option meant no one dared expose this news yet.

With luck, they wouldn't have to expose it at all.

Sardon slept well. He was too disciplined to not keep himself in perfect working order. Castellans were known for needing one hour naps every 24-36 hours but that was natural considering their active soldierly duties. He woke refreshed, washed, and ate. The fact that he could digest even as he considered Goth just showed his duranium constitution.

Goth was one of the higher keyholders in politics. He had finest blood; he had backing from anyone in a position to help. What he didn't have was the full approval of the Lord President.

Goth was anxious for power, and the Grey Man didn't think he was willing to wade through another another three or four millennial parades to get it. So far he was being the perfect politician and "legally elected official" and lived in his proper "tastefully understated" villa in the perfect neighborhood. He was a tireless advocate for social programs that kept the wheels turning, and always devoting energy and private funds into some Perdition-be-damned scholastic project. Like rebuilding libraries.

It was the libraries that blew Sardon's sleeping suspicions into full-grown confirmation. _Everyone_ had some stake in the many forms of education, research, and information. But rather than achieve fame in supporting art exhibits, cultural appreciation, employment and social progress, Goth poured his funds into areas that were unwanted, boring, and neutral of politics: he paid for the mandated utilities and facilities inspections.

All they had to do was file for one of his grants. And agree to the terms of the grant.

Sardon had been checking into the paperwork as discreetly as he could, but all he could collect was a sense of creeping dread. Goth's grants were painfully easy to file for: All you had to do was submit copies of the buildings in question to make certain all of the power, water, atmosphere, etc., were evenly distributed throughout the facility. If they were not, then Goth would accept the grant anyway on the grounds that a portion of the funds were used in correcting these imbalances. It was very efficient and thorough. Goth knew of struggling research and science sectors who filed just to get those improvements into their impoverished systems!

Someday, Sardon would have to really get down to the bottom of Goth's murky waters. He wasn't happy about it. He would need to be very clever and resourceful—and tricky.

Better yet, have someone who was clever, resourceful and tricky do the work for him.

Sardon was good at stifling anything that resembled a conscience when it came to using the Doctor. All he did was ask himself if his work was for the good of Gallifrey. The answer was always yes.

Thus restored and ready, The Grey Man tucked his daily reports from Kord (his new assistant) under one grey arm and made his way back to the Committee Room a few hours early. It was his thought to sit at the table, go through a few hundred papers, and keep a weather eye on the TSV before the official meeting time.

The doors opened to his Security key, and he paused, realising that the room was not empty after all.

"Good morning, Karnak," He said smoothly.

The woman blinked up at him, her eyes clouded with momentary confusion. "Sir." She nodded. "Good morning to you, Grey Lord." She was draped in wires, components, archiac bits, and holding three different tools in each hand.

"Is that my title now?"

"I wouldn't know about titles...it is merely what you are called and since this is the first time I've met you, I only now realize that may be your title behind your back."

Sardon had to smile. He liked telepaths; they were generally quite ethical (refreshingly so) and straightforward. Lies and deceit in a being that could detect unthruths led to fatal diseases. "Any progress upon the old relic?"

"I can keep it operating," Karnak answered with shabby enthusiasm. "This poor relic must have been through a war—it hasn't been given the attention it deserved. I'm trying to compensate. Give me a few decades and a junk yard and I'll have it running smooth as a quasar!" Now that she'd said the impossible, she looked happier. "She may be a relic, but she'll be our relic!"

"She?"

"Yes. She's definitely feminine." Karnak assured. "Most of this era machinery is female."

"Speaking of relics, the Doctor always insists his TARDIS is female. They're about the same age." Sardon contemplated the peculiar (if accidentally neat) designs of the Universe. "I can only hope we won't be watching the Doctor that long." He carefully set his papers down, and dialed up a cup of the first hot drink his brain could encode.

"I've checked on him a few time whilst I was upgrading. They've gotten him in some sort of holding cell—no room to move, really. I don't understand the purpose of the equipment."

Sardon sighed and picked up the condensed report the TSV had managed to spit out between non-functional moments. "It's not equipment, my good Karnak. It's not a holding cell, either. It's a holding pen—the kind primitive species use for immobilising beasts selected for slaughter." He grimaced as she turned white. "I shouldn't worry just yet. The Androgums want their prize safe and unharmed and in a place where they don't have to watch over him as they see to the other..." There was no getting around it. "Meals." He finished.

Karnak was still staring at him, white faced and not blinking.

"Androgums are not pleasant people."

"That large one...Brasher...He mentioned eating Time Lords."

"That is why we are watching before we interfere." Sardon sipped his cup and wondered what he was even drinking. "The Doctor will get to the bottom of the mystery here—with or without us."

Karnak's face struggled with credibility.

"It is a matter of power consumption and logistics." Sardon told her. "It is much cheaper and easier on our resources—that includes our nerves—to give him his head. If we were to interfere like Time Lords, half the planet would be aware of it by now."

She looked back at the TSV doubtfully. "A strange business. I hope to have this beast ready to operate without further breakdowns before meeting time."

"As you will." Sardon picked up the first of reports to rubberstamp for the day, and began to read.

The Doctor was not happy.

Travel by Androgum was not going to be on his list of chosen conveyances. Being slung over one hairy shoulder and carried to the T-mat like so much grain made it hard to notice important details—backwards and upside down wasn't the best orientation posture. _Finally_, they made it to the _Feathered Sun's_ hijacked control room.

The Doctor barely had time to memorise the T-mat coordinates before they re-materilised into the Androgum Ship. One sniff of the metallic air inside the walls and his hearts sank even further. This was an old, almost obsolete pigbear of a ship. Those tended to be a hallmark of creative engineering and other bits and bobs that would make it a bit more complicated for his still-germinating plans. Androgums were jealous of their primitive work; they nurtured and coddled it with their illogical attachments to vanity, and that made it hard to predict.

"Ah, they tidied up for us. Well done."

Brasher stopped in the middle of the room in approval. It had been done up proper: tall spiceplants created a leafy accent in deep pots simulated to imitate the rich volcanic mud-baths of their nutritional needs. Ceiling lights cast down blinding blue-white lights. The carpet, imitating the lush blue fleshgrass of home, had been freshly cleaned and a coat of paint gleamed the pearlescent hues of home in the brightness of mid-morning. Comfortable reclining furniture, tables, and ledges for food and drink rested among tasteful framed images of art: Famous Androgums poised with their Grig weapons, or an artistically mounted lock of hair or bit of tattooed skin from a famous celebrity. A delicate aquarium sat in the wall, permitting assorted small fish to swim in an ever-changing combination of colours. They were Salting-fish, each color holding a different flavour in their skin, brain, fins, and tails. Androgums were dearly fond of good, fresh flavour on their table.

It was, the Doctor thought worriedly, a lot like a waiting room.

Except for that strange glassed-in booth in the far corner. It looked a little familiar, but not quite...

"Master!" An Androgum that was Serrate's twin save for the extra excrescence on his right brow ran in and bowed. "You're back early! We'd hoped to surprise you!"

"And you did, Hollow. Very well done." Brasher approved. "Your taste is exquisite as always. Will you have enough time to prepare a small supper for the guests tonight?"

"Certainly, Master. What shall I prepare?" Despite the over-awing curiosity about the burden on Brasher's back, the young Androgum was manfully trying not to peer too closely or ask questions. Brasher was having just as much fun with not telling him anything, letting him stew in his own juices.

"Good, fresh flesh! We have some Ancel'ak that foolishly walked in front of our path—not the finest of meats, but fine grain!" The two laughed.

"Fresh is a quality that can never be duplicated," Hollow bowed his head with a cheeky grin. "The new pressure-cooker needs to be put to its paces—the maker claims that a raw-pack with herbs and spices will not only infuse the flavour into the meat, but it will also render the meat so tender you can feed it to your own infants!"

"Now there's a claim! How will you pack the meat, boy?"

"I would of course follow your expertise. One rend-leaf per jar for delicacy, and a tablespoon of lemon-ants for a bit of a stimulation upon the tongue, which would be cut into two-centimetre cubes. Cover with boiling, infused water before placing in the canner."

"Excellent. Bring me your first-draft of the menu when you get your kitchen in order. Your brother will be coming along soon for his first high-order examination." Brasher gave the little Time Lord over his shoulder a friendly pat on the leg and got another kick for it, making him chuckle.

"Yes, sir." The ache to ask burned in Hollow's eyes, but he minded his manners.

"Open the pen, my boy. And stand to the side—you have to be quick when you're working with these little hellions. They're a tricky sort sometimes..."

The Doctor was naturally quick and lithe, but he had no idea what happened next: one minute he was chained and over a fat, greasy cannibal's shoulder. The next, he was standing on his feet, compressed into a pen that would let him stand or sit but nothing else. Force fields pressed upon him in all directions—he couldn't even fall down unless he wanted to spend twenty minutes slowly falling-and he wasn't that bored just yet!

And that was where he was still.

The Doctor sighed and tried to look even more harmless than he felt. Moving around the pen was hard, but there were panels in all of the non-glassed parts of his cubical wired for sound and the sound had been piping soothing sub-sonics since his incarceration.

All this _calmness_ was beginning to get to him. _Be careful what you think_, he scolded himself.

The door to the side was flung open with a big, booted foot. The rest of Brasher followed, bellowing into a strangely-shaped communications device colored an unnerving shade of red.

"_Starving the beasts before slaughter?!"_

The leaves of the potted plants rippled. Reinforced deck or not, the floor was shaking under his tread. Brasher was well on his way to a long-familiar tirade. "Nothing but sloppy focus!" His voice turned ugly—or uglier, which the Doctor had not known was possible. The other voice on the other side of the device tried to protest—or argue-but Brasher was having none of it.

"It is a _proven_, _scientific fact_ that a stressed beast means inferior meat! And it takes no time to bring stress to a beast! It's bad enough you've got your kitchen right against your slaughtering-room where the creatures can smell the blood and fear! But starving before the slaughter? Pah!"

Brasher was really getting worked up now. Serrate leaped into the room in concern—and then cowed away from him.

"A period of rest is required of each animal before a proper slaughter! Now that's the first-day lesson every babe has to learn on their mother's knees—before they're even tall enough to reach the cooking-pot they have to have the basics drilled in their heads!"

Brasher spun on his heel and kept going. "Half of the live weight loss due to stress shows up as carcass weight!"

More frantic peeping from the other side.

"_And you believed him?"_

The fish swam away in panic. The Doctor hoped whoever this 'him' was, had no business being near his person for the rest of his lives.

"He still thinks he can kill with a good knock on the head!" Brasher did not hide his disgust. "Won't listen to his own grig's advice! He's not a young-one any more! You have to leave certain killings to the youth! If they never learn, what's the next generation going to be like? We have to move forward with our craft, not stay in one place!"

Brasher made a sound like a "pah!" at full volume and threw the offending device into the wall adjacent to the Doctor's cell. He watched pieces fly off in all directions, some spattering against the glass. A lozenge circuit sailed across his eyes, pure gold and rare (Granheim's Design, 700's, Common Gallifreyan Era), and he winced at the loss of a very _nice_ bit of antiquery.

In the meantime, Brasher was turning to his cowed apprentice. "I'll be a feast for the grandchildren while there's still enough of me to savour! I will never, _ever_ allow myself to get old enough to be such a drooling idiot as that one! But the good news is, he belongs to our Grig."

"Master?"

"Because if word got out how much I hated a _rival_ Grig's cook, there'd be open warfare." The huge alien sniffed loudly.

"Oh."

As one, the two turned to look at the Doctor (which he had hoped they would not do). "Terribly sorry for the fuss." The huge master apologized. "It's been ages since I had anything in there worthy to show, er...what is your name, Time Lord?"

"What's _your_ name, Androgum?" The Doctor snapped.

Serrate went stiff with shock, but Brasher was unaffected. "I am Brasher of the Quawcine Grig, Master Fowler!"

"And a Master Fowler, compared to a regular Fowler, is...?" The Doctor didn't feel like playing it safe today.

Brasher (for better or for worse) looked merely amused at his captive's pique.

"Why, a fowler is a hunter, of course. The highest level of hunter among the other hunters. Without a fowler the table would be a sorry sight indeed!"

The huge Androgum rolled forward in his boots, stopping before the glass. The Doctor had a fascinating, up-close view of what Jamie called the heart-spoon of the chest. He was glad he couldn't smell through the barrier.

A button off to the side was pushed, and the Doctor felt the press of gravity appeased; he could move, if slowly.

"And a Master Fowler makes Fowling his life's calling. For him is the responsibility and joy of the hunt—he embraces it into his being! No quarry is too difficult or too dangerous. No objective is too risky."

"Because you Androgums are what you eat, as the proverb says." The Doctor said coolly.

"What a concise way to put it! Whose proverb?"

"Earthers. They have many, many proverbs that would apply to you." The little Time Lord reached up with great difficulty to press his fingertips against the glass of the door. The force-field within was not impermeable, but it was difficult to work with. Short, sharp movements were impossible. "You hunt the deadliest, most dangerous of beings and serve them up because you wish to absorb their dangerous qualities into your own DNA!"

"It is part of the responsibility of being an Apex Predator." Brasher said modestly.

The Doctor wasn't about to waste his breath on that. He humph'd and continued his bored examination of his tiny prison.

"I have given my name, Little Time Lord. I await yours."

The Doctor felt a long-stifled urge of rebellion come to him. The start of a VERY thin plan was bubbling away in that ever-present plotting and scheming portion of his mind.

"Oh, names are names." He drawled. "You can call me John Smith...or Rip Van Winkle...or Gaius Iunius Faber..." He watched the other closely as he spoke. "Mason...Galloway...The Examiner..."

"Oh, are you?" Brasher grinned. "And what do your enemies call you?"

"Lots of things." The Doctor shot back tranquilly. "When they call me anything at all. Let's see... Dok-Tor is one. I've been called Salamander...'That Rotten Little Ragamuffin,'... 'Dirty little Tramp—although I do disagree with being called 'dirty,'" He glanced at his scrupulously clean fingernails with a quick scowl. "Vagabond. Gipsy. Tramp... The variations are limitless."

Brasher stood even closer. Despite the shielding glass, the Doctor could feel the force of his personality on the other side. "And your allies? What do your allies call you?"

"Whatever name they choose. It doesn't matter to me." His eyes narrowed, sliding into a dark sea-grey. "I know who I am."

"A Riddler, are you? Are you clever enough for the title?" Brasher wanted to know. "Then we'll just call you," He bent close. "Trickster." And he grinned. "That should remind us to watch you, Little one."

"Oh, dear. Do I really need watching?"

"All Time Lords need watching." Brasher said with absolute certainty. "And a feral Time Lord? Even more so." He reached up and toyed with a tiny ornamental pin at his breast. It was shaped like a bird's claw. "You're the first Feral I've ever caught. You are obviously good at what you do, or you wouldn't be so healthy." He paused to wipe drool off his chin. "This is not a tame Universe. Those who survive, do it very well." He wiped again. "Power is how to survive...and cleverness...intelligence..." His voice dropped. "And guile. Lots of guile. I sense that about you."


	12. Chapter 12

The Doctor had time to take one deep breath of Non-Androgum-rank air before the door opened and he was _again_ yanked out.

"There we are, Serrate." Again he was hoisted up in a smelly Androgum's smelly arms (it was, he thought grimly, like being molested by a tree trunk). Hollow popped out from the back room, not about to miss out on anything interesting.

The huge Androgum chuckled deep in his barrel chest. The vibration rang against the Doctor's bones. "Here, Serrate. Tell me what you think." He held out the little Time Lord at arms' length before the younger Androgums. The Doctor was still wondering how the brute had managed to clap the manacles on him again. He was absolutely faster than he appeared!

"You have a fresh specimen-A good one," He announced to the masked Apprentice. "Tell me what you think."

"Yes, Master." Serrate bowed to his knees. With hopeful anticipation he stepped forward. "This is a Time L-" He coughed and staggered back. "-Lord," he finished with a hand to his throat. "A lively one."

Brasher chuckled merrily and locked one arm around the Doctor's legs. "Never drop your guard on a wild animal, Apprentice." He tried to lecture with a straight face. "Now what if it had been Old Bludger teaching you, and not me?"

"I would be threatened with the soup-pot, sir. Extra salt and a pinch of _gaan_."

"Carry on. A basic marketplace specimen. Your petty stockyard agent is unsympathetic to your craft. After much yelling he will permit you to briefly touch the beasts. No disrobing—Organoleptic analysis—nothing more, then give us your decree."

Serrate squared his shoulders bravely. He stepped closer. The Doctor glared with as much anger as his psyche could muster at short notice.

The younger Androgum prodded the Doctor's ribs beneath his shirt with cautious tenderness, checking the layer of meat and fat beneath the skin. "A bit small but that means nothing when one pursues quality in the product." He frowned. "Some bruising upon the torso, I think. The temperature of the skin is mottled and erratic through the cloth." He continued this testing from one limb to the other. "I would be worried about the bruising, sir. I would prefer to examine the whole specimen before I decreed a price."

"As well as you should. But in the rare occasion, one cannot. What will you do?"

"I would proclaim the obvious facts—apparent health-" He paused and sniffed loudly. "No sign of mood-enhancing drugs that would give a false impression of health and vitality. The beast appears to be physically middle-aged. I could find no sign of subcutaneous cellulose injections to make the beast look plumper; the hair appears to be naturally colored, so we may overlook any cosmetic additions to create a sense of youth. Its high-strung nervousness could easily be from its unnaturally confined environment, and not genetic disposition or presence of chemicals or appetite stimulators that could make it gain weight before the market." The Androgum's face cleared as something occurred to him. "I would decree just below the fair market value of the live weight on the grounds that the specimen would have to be kept in quarantine before slaughter—and also the fact that the injuries are not fully diagnosed. This may offend the keeper enough that he may...let slip facts about the beast's history and condition."

"Very well, Serrate." Brasher rumbled with great good humor. "A fine snap diagnosis in less than one minute. You are learning quickly. Nothing like good cookbooks and a bowl of marrow soup once a day to stimulate the learning glands!"

"Sir! Yes, Master Fowler!" The young man glanced at his hopefully-waiting twin and the two aimed their most expressive eyes at the huge Brasher. "Sir...could you..."

"Oh, I suppose if I must." Brasher grinned, an indulgent uncle. "Here."

The Doctor managed another kick as he was transferred to Serrate's meaty paws. It whistled by Brasher's chin harmlessly.

_And here we go again,_ the little Time Lord thought wearily as Brasher's bigger, stronger hands did their examination of his future carcass...showing off just a bit, the Master barely touched him which was truly the smallest of all small favours.

"Well, well. Not the usual standard fare, are we?" Brasher's voice changed to that of a more unctuous, parodic imitation of pompous and self-important idiot. He worked his fingers over the thin shirt in a fluttering, effete maneuver. "Not the ordinary soft fare here, isn't he? This one gets outside, doesn't he?" He asked in a high falsetto. "Do you take them out for exercise? This one's a little fighter, isn't he?" The huge fingers gently squeezed and tested the muscles at the Doctor's shoulders, arms, and legs. "Oh, yes. Plenty of good, clean, outdoor living! Exercise and fresh air! Well, well. This isn't something one sees every day, isn't he?!"

He pulled back, pursing his thick lip in pretend thought, and his acting skills were enough that he could pretend he couldn't hear the giggling apprentices.

The Doctor, in the sincere interest of learning about an exploitable weak spot, made note of every word. It would appear the stories of Androgum rivalries, grudges and annoyances weren't just rumors.

The Doctor took the moment to take a deep, Androgum-untainted breath, and slow his heartsrate.

"Well," Brasher continued, still in character, "I suppose we ought to be grateful for what we can get in these wretched facilities, shouldn't we?" He paused, hands on his hips, and sniffed once, a long, loud suction of atmosphere into his nostrils as he slowly rotated to give the room a disapproving moue. "It could be much worse...I suppose." Another sniff—even longer than the last one. "Six nargs. I'll kill it myself."

Unable to contain themselves, the apprentices exploded into paroxysms of unbridled hysteria. Brasher let them run on it for almost a minute before he lifted a large hand. The younger Androgums subsided with great effort.

"Mind you," he declared, "I once saw a fellow, o'Chaunting Grig, offer that much for a fully grown Dominator! Liveweight! He thought it would be cheaper and save expense if the beast carried itself to the slaughterhouse!" His students were horrified at the thought. "I know." The Fowler sighed. "Just one of the advantages to being a hunter as opposed to being a grocery-shopper—or if you're looking for a juicy haunch of Martian, a greengrocer."

The Doctor had killed quite a few Martians in his history, but he didn't see that funny. The audience, however, did.

"Right. Enough play-time, children." Brasher wagged his finger. "We need to get everything ready for the supper. "Everyone needs to look their best—not that any of my apprentices need to be told!" He puffed out his chest as he spoke. "A main course of Ancel'ak followed by a dessert aspic, making use of those wonderful lizards in storage. Hollow, it will be your task to simmer the broths down. Serrate, the beasts need exercise tomorrow morning to get their digestive juices going." He tutted. "And just in case, walk the Time Lord through the decontamination. I'd prefer the baths, but that would make it look tamer than it really is."

"Yes, Master." Serrate dropped him on his feet like a hot potato. The Doctor stumbled and, thanks to the restraints, fell flat on his face.

"You'll bruise the meat!" The big Androgum roared at his hapless protégé. He stepped hastily to the side as the prisoner rolled over on his back in an effort to get up. "Carry him! We'll save time!-Hollow, get the exhibit ready for tonight."

"Yes, Master." The younger said quickly. The Doctor felt the air whistle out of his lungs as the huge creature lifted him over one shoulder. Rassilon, Androgums were strong! You heard of the stories; you even saw it on the Temporal Scanners…but it was quite another chalk to experience it for yourself…

…speaking of, he considered darkly as they continued on their merry way to wherever and whatever 'decontamination' entailed, were they being watched by the Temporal Oversight Committee yet? Sardon's brief holo-communication aside, the Grey Lord had said something about his calculations sending him a month ahead, which meant they might still be on the other side of that calculation, waiting for him to come out.

By then there wouldn't be much of him to rescue… He swallowed hard and used his fingers to slide something small and sharp up his over-large sleeve: A twist of metal from Brasher's broken telecom. He'd just barely planned his pratfall to collect it. Good thing it worked. Pity he couldn't grab that lovely little gold chip. Now to make sure this improvisational lockpick was well hidden...

Apprentice Serrate snarled, reaching up to grab at his cargo as it kept wriggling. "Hold still, you little scamp!" He laughed.

"He's full of pep and verve." The Master Fowler agreed. "We'll fetch a good price."

"Even with the age, Master?" Apprentice asked respectfully.

"Oh, especially with the age." The Master Androgum relished. He paused at a door to work at a bizarre-looking contraption of a lock (it appeared to have been slapped together with broken bits of metal). "The older ones have _such_ flavor in the meat! The blood alone creates a sublime savour—why, some cooks specialise in keeping the beasts alive just for the blood production! As long as they stay healthy all is well—but you have to keep a close eye. When they start to age it's time to move them quick to the butcher's block. But...until then...you can ask for a higher price on the market, and still keep the meat alive to produce more. A Time Lord's fresh blood is worth it's own gram-weight in argonite!" He wiped his mouth at the thought.

"Yes, sir?" The Apprentice definitely had his hands full now. The little Time Lord was struggling for all he was worth. Brasher rumbled at the sight of them, glad it wasn't him holding on to the meat. The poor Apprentice really wanted to be properly expressive of one of the most exciting moments of his life, but the Time Lord was rather taking the moment away from him.

Ah, youth. It was the moments like these these that the Master enjoyed the most.

"A perfect day, one would think, Apprentice." He observed as he watched the struggle. "Successful retrieval of cargo, plus an extra bonus! We'll show up that fool Shockeye…and all the Grigs! Gluttons, all of them. No appreciation for the higher cause-

"-Hold still." The Master Fowler leaned over and grabbed the Time Lord by the hair (There was a lot of it), pulling his head back for a closer look. The fear in his face was unmistakeable, but the pulse leaped strong in his throat. "He's got two hearts, this one. Excellent. They tend to have leaner meat." He paused to sniff. "Prime condition. Off to decontamination, a bit of blood for the bouquet...and get him ready for tonight's supper. Hollow should have the pen ready by the time we get back."

"Yes, sir!" The Apprentice glowed with delight, and finally succeeded in a locking-hold. "Come along, now! No sense fighting. You'll just hurt yourself and we can't have that!"

The little Time Lord paused in the middle of his gyrations at that, and stopped long enough to GLARE at him. The look could have frozen mercury.

The Master Chef chuckled. "Few people appreciate a good bit of meat, I'm afraid. And that includes the owners."

* * *

The Decontamination was almost a disappointment for the Doctor—not to slur the Androgums, but he was used to more drastic things as a part of captivity: getting locked inside alien computers...getting shot through the skull...facing an organic neural parasite...feeding the holy sharks...justifying his expense account to old Ragnar...

(In his future incarnation, a much-beleaguered Brigadier would be poring over another quarterly report and contemplate the possible experience the Doctor had gleaned from his obviously colourful life; he simply had no sense of fear when it came to paperwork).

The decontamination was nothing more dramatic than getting tossed in a chamber flooded with anti-bacterial lights on low lumen. Excruciatingly painful, yes. But that was the size of it.

"Low lumen, sir?" Serrate asked timidly. On the other side of the glass the Time Lord was writhing in pain as a million little needles stabbed through his flesh all the way to his bones.

"Time Lords are naturally clean." He was informed. "They host a series of bacteria that is harmless to the rest of us but vital to their health. One may as well try to make cheese without the right strand of mold—or for that matter, any mold at all. It's an intricate partnership."

"I have so much to learn." Serrate mumbled.

Brasher patted him on the back. "You managed to eat the competitors for your post. I daresay you and Hollow have the best chance of serving up all of your rivals at the upcoming Convention."

That made him feel better.

"Oops!" Brasher quickly opened the door before the Time Lord could throw himself against the glass. "A bit claustrophobic, perhaps." He guessed, as Serrate caught him en route to the floor. "Wild beasts usually are. It's another reason to appreciate the Gravity Pens—they weren't invented when I was your age. We had to learn twenty different ways of hobbling."

"Do they normally react this way?" Serrate wondered.

"In my regretfully limited experience, yes. It's an overstimulating experience for their sensitive nervous system. Not harmful in the long run of course, but it leaves them easier to handle for a few hours." A chirrup from his belt made him look down. "Ah, hallo...Is that you, Hollow? Yes. Yes...excellent." He looked up to his apprentice. "Your brother is prepared now. Put our exhibit back and—do make certain the locks are extra strong. Use the Sontaran-grade models."

"Sontaran?" Serrate blinked. He couldn't think of the last time they'd had Sontarans—the meat was so coarse and lacking in...well, everything. It was comparable to Textured Vegetable Protein. Where in the Galaxies would those locks even be? Gathering dust somewhere... "Sir, the Time Lord is capable of breaking out?"

"What? Oh, no." Brasher threw back his head and roared with laughter. "No, no, no. You misunderstand me. The Time Lord couldn't possibly break out of the Gravity Pen. But we have to make certain our guests get no...ideas." He lifted a thick brow meaningfully.

Serrate caught on. "Ahhhh." He wiped drool from his mouth. And smiled all the way back to the Gravity Pen.

* * *

**Gallifrey:**

Karnak was getting tired.

It had been decades since she'd last "pushed" herself. Part of that was her work, which was never predictably demanding. And she was one of the sorts who learned from her mistakes and tried not to repeat them. Thus, her record had grown only more spotless with the passing years.

But she couldn't remember the last time she'd dealt with a case that had her psychic abilities stretched as much as her mechanical expertise...at the same time.

Taking a rare break from the telepathic circuits, she leaned back and drank from her personal glass as the rest of the meeting-members filed in with mixed expressions of "I don't want to be here" on their austere faces.

She knew better than to trust any of these people. They held too many lives in their hands. Sardon was well known for his skill in smoothing over troubled feelings and operating within the most narrow lines of behavior—but he was comfortable in her presence, and that alerted her to a deeper issue: He obviously had training in blocking telepathic minds, or he was less xenophobic than his peers, or a combination of the two.

Karnak really hoped this was the latter. Xenophobia was the most boring of flaws within Time Lords society.

What would some of them think, if they knew the battered old TSV was leaking its telepathic circuitry into her brain at the same time it was surveying their agent?

Surveying. The Council preferred the word as opposed to others—such as "peeping, spying, evesdropping...sniffing about..."

Surveying implied they were emotionally impartial to what was going on.

She drank, watching Sardon direct the traffic, so to speak, of the meeting itself. In the background Goth loomed—more dangerous because he didn't like to be predictable. Sardon liked to have rules; it saved time in working with others.

And then of course, there was the Doctor...

Karnak watched the screen as she flexed her sore arms. It would lose picture without warning so she had little choice but to hover like a carrion-bird in the thermals.

Comparing herself to something that waited for things to die was a bit uncomfortable right now; it was looking more and more like the Doctor's fate was going to be more than messy and probably embarrassing as well (which most Time Lords opted as the fate worse than death).

After a painful-looking decotamination process, they'd locked him back in the best-pen and fixed the surrounding room to look like (she presumed) a Dining Hall for Androgum Plutarchians.

This meant a place that looked disturbingly like a medical waiting room was now looking like a primitive feasting hall with lots of burning braziers (she wondered if the flames were real), grimy-looking trophies (mostly artistically preserved body parts of some beast or that), and a long table crammed with no seeming logic or order with a bewildering display of haphazard foods and drinks.

Androgums from all over the ship had filtered in for the feast—and not just any Androgum representative either. Sardon had identified them as minor chieftans or petty elders. They were all large, and covered with ecrescences to prove a long history of eating other, mostly intelligent, beings.

Halfway through the feast they had (unfortunately) learned how Hollow earned his name: They had pulled the Doctor out of his pen as a "guest" of honor, and the apprentice had used a hollow knife, a bloodletter, on a vein in his arm. The collected blood had mixed into the drink and the Androgums had gulped it down with an obscene relish, bloody liquid running down their chins and shirt-fronts. Even Goth had been unable to keep his usual mask of cool contempt.

Karnak had to hand it to the Doctor. He was facing it all with more composure than any of the council members in their neat, safe room. He simply waited and watched in a seemingly calm state of shock—the telepath didn't need psychic ability to believe he was quietly committing all of the repulsive faces to memory.

She knew he wasn't in shock. His calm face was out of sync with what she was detecting beneath his eyes.

It worried her. Telepathy was one thing, but feeling emotions as well? That was a rarer impression for her. It must be part of the bleedover from the TSV...and possibly another element in all this mess: The older behaviors of the antique machine; its relationship with the equally old machine in the Doctor's TARDIS—and of course, the TARDIS itself, which she suspected had a more than light layer of mental communication with him.

If any of that was true, she had more than one reason to keep quiet. Time Lords weren't against telepathic machinery—not to hear them talk. But they violently disliked the notion that the machinery in question might have something to say.

Give them a moment to think and they start imagining all kinds of horrors...like Omega's Hand gone wandering—they never did find the thing and good riddance! But Time Lords seemed to lump all of the Old Tools into the same category as the Hand.

There were precious few willing to see the tools as they were—useful, potentially dangerous if improperly treated, alive and possibly—just possibly—in possession of a soul or will.

"It's a long shot, that's all." A bulky Androgum female complained. "Don't you remember the trouble of getting just _those_ specimens from Earth?" Without waiting for an answer she started laughing. "Thought the _largest_ species was the _apex_ species, he did! Wound up getting a ship full of these hairy beasts, thinking _they_ were Tellurians!" Caught up in the hilarity, she mimed very large forms. "How he mistook Tellurians—which are soft, mostly hairless creatures without claws, fangs, venom, spurs, scales or crests for those—grant you, _very_ tasty—things with lots of claws, fangs, and a thick pelt of fur..!"

"I think everyone has an embarrassing First Adventure." A burly male offered. He dropped a rack of ribs upon his plate and was gnawing thoughtfully on a stripped bone, squeezing out the juicy marrow. "If only everyone's mistakes were as succulent as his!"

Everyone touched their fingertips to their lips in a show of agreement upon a palatable manner.

The Doctor managed to control his rising nausea with an act of will that impressed even himself. Bad enough he'd recognized the majority of the main course as Ancel'ak body portions, but they weren't the only ones.

There was not a single dish before his eyes that did not represent the theft of a life. Even the "sweetening" dish was an abomination: royal jelly from the Menopteras. That people needed every precious gram of that substance in order for their hive's next generation to survive.

And now they were talking of Earth. He had so hoped they would be unaware of that tiny planet, but luck was not with him today.

It was a small comfort that the one expedition had confused humans with a less tractable species...

"What were those things, anyway?" A Matriarch frowned. "A bit on the fatty end, but grilled with fresh dahm-wedges and it was something to savour! And those paws made the best pickling! My old mother wants me to bring it to the family reunion."

"Oh, Great Gendik. Well it took us a week of digging about, but we finally narrowed it down to an ursine species called a "bear." They have almost as much variety in appearance as Tellurians do—and I have to tell you, some of those bears weren't created the same!"

"You're thinking of those red ones." Puffer lifted his glass high. "Yes. Venomous spidery-bears. We wound up cutting the venom sacs out of their palms. I wonder if that's why they never tasted as good as the others?"

"Venomous beasts can taste very good." Was the protest. "Unless you're talking just poisonous all around, like those kaled mutants."

(The Doctor felt, for one of the few times in his lives, his brain supercool at the idea of anyone eating anything from Skaro, much less the intelligent species. He also wondered if he'd missed something because he couldn't recall anything even vaguely answering to the description of "spider bears" on earth.)

_Spider monkeys? No, that wouldn't be anything near the right answer!_ Trying to mask his helplessness, he sipped from a glass of water—they were thoughtfully making sure he stayed hydrated for the next blood-letting. _The biggest web-spinner would be those cat-sized prehistoric models, but they couldn't survive in the thinner oxygen levels of Earth today..._

"We still have a few of those poisonous bears left in storage." Mirrortooth assured the younger guest. "Almost more trouble than they're worth, but you never know what will be the secret ingredient at the feast."

"That's _so_ true."

"I think those spider-bears were an extinct species because they were all mechanically augmented—and he harvested every single one of them at that zoo. They were probably an educational exhibit. Letting the young ones see for themselves..."

(The Doctor was wondering what era he was in; he'd really thought he hadn't veered that far off the Temporal Course, but the Androgums were talking about no species on Earth he'd ever heard of, encountered, or read about in school...)

"Pity we couldn't get any Tellurians. Nothing tastes like a Tellurian."

"That's what I've heard."

"Well you can't tell me that isn't the reason why that little planet's always getting invaded! Don't they still hold the record?"

The Doctor listened with half an ear. His ersatz lockpick was still safe, but difficult to reach (for now). The blood-letting had left him tired. His hearts had lowered their rates in order to make the circulation an easier time of it.

He wanted to take a nap; the odds of the conversation offering him anything interesting was less than glowing—he had a better chance of pitting Sardon and Goth together...or tricking them both into the same faulty lift on its way to the most blood-sucking insectivorous-riddled shipyard in Kasterborous.

_Now wouldn't that be a sight...I wonder who would win?_

Reluctantly, because he didn't approve of favoritism, he mentally afforded Goth the advantage due to size, the stronger physical body, and a brain that was so stuffed with Prydonion corruption that the excess leaked out of his ears in the form of unctuous speechifying. Five minutes of lecture and Sardon would beg for the sweet release of death.

Brasher bellowed at some witticism; he was keeping the Doctor at his side throughout the whole horrible meal and the sound made the little Time Lord cringe.

_Like sitting next to a bull alligator...hmn. I wonder if he would charge if I threw out a Middle B-flat on a tuba?_

"Not at all!" Brasher was saying. "Not at all. But as you can tell for yourselves, my most worthy peers,

(The Doctor knew outright lying when he heard it, and had the years of survival in the CIA as proof).

"My most worthy peers," Brasher rose effortlessly to his feet. As as huge as he was, the Doctor was impressed at the alien's ability to move at all. "The fact remains that despite the treachery of the Ancel'ak, we have recovered our blood-tithe and then some! Not only do we have their insult of a bribe with their _frozen slabs of undressed meat_," he paused to sniff through the sides of his nostrils, and the listeners chipped in with many boos and catcalls and Androgum expressions of outrage, "But we have the Ancel'ak and their ship!" Pause for the boos to turn into huzzahs. "The complete inventory of the live cattle will be finished by this time tomorrow, and by then we shall be completely in our home territory!"

"Feasting!" A wag shouted from the back, and everyone laughed.

"Yes! Feasting!" Brasher held up his hands. "Feasting and drinking at the Courts of Pleasure! We have a promising young Perelaccan to stand on our teams in the Games, and along with the other young jacks and bucks, we can look forward to a week of celebration! Winner takes all!"

"Because we eat the losers!" That same wag answered—to much hilarity.

"I am curious, Brasher." The older woman piped up. Her fingers were longer than average and they curled around her blood-goblet with unappealing skill. "Can even a Master salvage anything useful among those icicles in storage?"

"It is more than possible." Brasher told her. "The quality will of course be lower, but there is no doubting the...freshness of the product. Now, it would be a different story if they'd tried to thaw them out. Spoils the meat, you know." He shuddered. "Pity. There were some prime specimens! I thought it would be good practice for the Culinary Schools—nothing like giving the new generation a challenge to see what they're made of!"

Murmurs of approval met this decision, and the Doctor revised his older assessment of Brasher. This Androgum was in charge of everyone else on this ship—either that, or he was revered to that extent.

"And the Time Lord?" The squat Mirrortooth grinned, wiping his mouth.

He was far too close to the Doctor.

"Ah, the Time Lord." Brasher beamed. "A rare dish must be savoured, must it not? We have many weeks of blood-letting to enjoy before we move on to more...fleeting pleasures as a meal."

"He should be eaten quickly. His people will come looking for him."

Without a blink, Brasher calmly transferred the Doctor back to the gravity pen (and the Doctor was glad to be there). Without the need to explain he slipped the Sontaran-grade bolt upon the seal.

"It is possible his people will come for him...but it is just as likely they will not." Brasher told his audience. "This is a feral Time Lord. Healthy and living under a natural diet. Such a feast will not come to us again for a long time."

"If it ever will." A female breathed. Her small, black eyes glittered. "You mean to make a gift for the Grigs, don't you old friend?"

"They can mime and ape the laws of trade they pretend to follow, my dear Prentinine. But will they be so hypocritical when they have a chance to sink their teeth into the succulent flesh of a Time Lord?"

The murmurs rippled about the room, low and admiring and approving.

_The Grigs,_ the Doctor thought in a sudden lurch of despair. _Oh, no, the Grigs._ The heads of state for what passed for law and order among these corrupted creatures.

"No!"

The Doctor jumped. Sound was partially blocked from the cell, but he'd heard that well enough! With a sudden show of rage, Brasher stamped back to the door of his cell and slammed another button. Blackness descended.

"We'll just remove the temptation, shan't we, Mirrortooth?" The little Time Lord heard his keeper ask...and then the rest of the sound faded all together. He was alone and isolated from sight and sound.

Not that he felt bad about missing out on that banquet...he'd already been party enough to it, thank you! He scowled and took the effort to rub his sore arm.

So. This ship was not staffed or crewed with "approved" Androgums. That meant they were operating completely without the permission of the Grigs.

That didn't mean the Grigs didn't know what was going on. Androgums had but one law, and that was "don't get caught."

His loosely-germinating plan was a bit stronger than it had been, but he still needed to work on it a bit.

And for that, he needed to buy time.

Time was all a Time Lord really needed.

His eyes closed. His body relaxed. By degrees he sank to the floor into a lotus position. The Kaya Mudras weren't something he normally used; it took a lot of concentration and power. Luckily for him, the Tibetan Monks had taught him the trick of tapping into sources of energy outside his personal energy field.

Now all he needed to do was...screw up a bit of courage...

He stopped breathing as his mind shot out of his body.

* * *

On Gallifrey, a humble temporal engineering technician gasped and dropped six different calibration tools all over the floor.


	13. Chapter 13

**Gallifrey:**

_**[SORRY ABOUT THAT.]**_

Karnak hoped her mother would never know about this day: Her daughter, the 'smartest of the lot', sprawled on the floor in full uniform, covered in tools (and sitting on her tool-belt), right in front of her superiors, while an obsolete Time Space Visualiser projected a message conjured entirely from the mind of the madman on the other side of the screen.

"You nearly deafened me!" She shouted at the screen. On it, the Doctor's slightly-blurry image remained calm.

_[I said I was sorry, didn't I?] _

The Doctor's image stepped out of the circular screen like a transparent hologram and glanced briefly about the room before dismissing it all and turning his gaze to the technician._ [I didn't know anything like you would be around so close.]_

"_I'm anything?" _Karnak felt her temper rising to the occasion. "You've got your cheek, young man! And tone it down right this instant! It's a wonder every psychic-vampire from here to the Barrier isn't running after you right now!" She yanked her white braid behind her shoulder in fury. The nerve of some people..!

_[Now who'll be shouting? And I am toning it down, I'll have you know! How was I supposed to know you were using a Third-Era Visualiser?] _The Doctor's projected image paused and looked behind him, taking in the details. He tutted.

_ [For that matter, where'd you find this old thing? Last I saw one of those, I was looting the Wastes for spare parts! She's older than the Fossilwood Forest!] _He chuckled suddenly, and gripped his lapels in a mannerism more known to his previous incarnation. This brought him up to his astrally-projected full height, which was a whole half-centimeter taller than her._ [Nice adaptations, by the way. Most people aren't aware you can make a patch with the gold-alloy blocks. Are you plugging the gaps with crumpled-up aluminum paper? Ah, that brings back memories.]_

"Never mind where I found it! You should just be grateful it's here! We're using it to keep an eye on you!"

_[Oh, I feel __so__ much safer now._ Sarcasm painted the atmosphere. _ [Look, I'm not sure how much time I have, so quit fussing and listen-]_

"WHAT?!"

_[-The Androgums are planning to take everyone to their home world, which I'm sure you already know since you're getting your jollies eavesdropping-]_

"We happen to be-"

_[-but there's a lot more at stake than Androgum politics. The Grigs are plotting a coup against the Third Spiral Quadrant of the Third Zone. Time to fire up those Temporal Scanners and start watching any area on our side of the Kirkwood Gap!]_

"What the—what are you blathering about?" Karnak was shouting by this point—the volume boiling off the Doctor's intellect was making her do it. "I've heard the same thing you've heard, and I didn't hear anything about a coup!"

A sigh was her reward, and it wasn't very patient.

_[One. You see but you do not observe. You hear but you don't listen. All that double talk about giving gifts to the Grigs-the Grigs are the official law-makers and governmental agencies! Theyre the heads of their clans—which they call 'grigs' too (very imaginative). The linguistic meaning is, the Grigs speak for the grigs—they are quite literally the voice of their peoples—the __only__ voice, I should add! They decide the participation of their people in Third Zone territory, young lady.]_ The Doctor lifted a projected eyebrow. _[These pirates are dressed in Unallied clothing as if they're rebels and free agents. But here they are talking about going straight to the Grigs with bribes? They'd never get as far as the Front Gate unless they had permission.]_

"Don't you call me young lady, you impertinent boy! I'm old enough to be your great-grandmother! They're pretending to be rebels?" Karnak felt angry and stupid, but she wanted to be clear on everything, and that included her promise to take a proverbial kilo of flesh out of the Doctor's hide for all of this trouble.

_[They're only surface rebels. They're really privateers, collecting intelligent species for their soup-pots! They've done this before in the past, and they'll continue to do it as long as they can get away with it! Androgums are designed to devour other species so they will incorporate! Although, their favorite word is 'consummate'...Androgums who don't eat intelligent species are genetic dead ends, unable to breed! I mentioned that back when I was serving on the High Council—__**young lady**__!]_ Hand on his hips, the Doctor squared off with the infuriated technician. _[At the time I had to choose between campaigning against the Androgums or banning the miniscopes and silly old idiot me thought the crimes of the Androgums would speak for themselves! He snorted. _

_[Look, this isn't exactly the best time for me to be in a state of statuvolism! So quit arguing with me, start listening, and do what I say before I get yanked out of the Bardo Plane!]_

"Its your own fault if something horrible gulps your brains down!" Karnak roared. "You're broadcasting like a Perdition quartz!"

_[What you need to do is fix this poor thing.]_ The Doctor snorted. _[The Spatial Crystal Detector's cracked. Get another one and switch out the Diodes with a Seventh Era model. Should fit like a charm.]_

"What is a charm and why should it fit—and I DO beg your most Holy Pardon, THETASIGNMAATIELLUNGBARROW! But you may have heard yourself say just a few seconds ago that this is a slightly obsolete model!"

_[Oh, tosh. I'm more obsolete than this thing. Just hop out the Panopticon, and get that spare that's quietly mouldering away in the Other's Scrapyards. Should be somewhere in the middle of that pile next to the bottom of the Pinkrock Escarp. Watch out for the tunnel vipers this time of year—they're always cranky when they have to feed more than 500 babies, and considering their gestational season was a good one last year...] _The Doctor paused as a thought struck him._ [Oh. And say hello to Narvin. Big chap, likes to wear a lot of fur regardless of the weather. Other than that he's mostly harmless.]_

"What. What. What." Karnak climbed to her feet and started waving wildly to get the madman's attention. "I am not going anywhere near a colony of tunnel vipers! And who is Narvin?"

_[Old friend. He collects vipers. Breeds them. A bit odd, but mostly harmless.]_

"And no one "hops out" of the Panopticon!" Karnak reached for breath. "It's locked tight!"

The look the Doctor gave her would have been priceless if it hadn't been directed at her.

_[Oh, pish and tosh. The whole mechanism's based on the Tentmaker's Pulsar. Prime the sonic code at 33.033333, but use the ellipsis! DO NOT code at _the viniculum or the dots or the fractions! Stick with 0.(3) if it gives you trouble! _A_f_ter six and a half aptoseconds, dial it down to .267, hold your breath and stand to the left. Sometimes the leeward circuits like to explode on you—depends on how long the parts have been gathering dust. There's a lot of dust on the other side of the Panopticon, and its full of that old metals-ash from when Mt. Oia went boom-]_

Karnak stared. "I take it you've done this before."

_[Oops. Something's happening. Got to go. Here. Hold on to this-]_

One last, quick burst of information knocked on the door of Karnak's mind, and, sensing the urgency, she took the moral high ground and accepted it. For the briefest of seconds a crushing pain lapped at her consciousness and subsided upon the absorption.

Silence.

Her ears ringing, Karnak slowly turned to face the councilmembers (and mentally bidding goodbye her well-paying, largely satisfying career in CIA Technical Repair).

All eyes met her with differing degrees of thunderstruck astonishment.

"Ah..." The Grey Lord lifted his fist to his mouth and delicately coughed. "Excuse me...Technician Karnak... but are we to believe you were in telepathic conference with the Doctor just now?"

Still dazed, the woman nodded.

"Would you mind...telling us what he was saying to you?"

"Or yelling." Milvo added.

"Or yelling."

"Ah..." Karnak swallowed. "No one...heard it?" She asked in a tiny voice.

"Oh, we _heard_ plenty of it." Goth lifted both eyebrows. "But only from your end of things, I fear. Whatever the Doctor was saying or doing, only you could see and hear."

Reality sank in with cold, hard claws.

Karnak felt herself flush, from the tips of her toes to the top of her scalp.

"That little...that slimy, slithery little..." She swore in her mother's tongue. "That...precocious brat! _Telling me to show some self control! I'll show him a thing or two!"_

Half out of her mind with fury, she slapped the comm on her wrist. "JONO!" She snarled at full volume. "Get the portable T-Mat ready. You're going to go get some parts for me." Her comm garbled. "Don't be silly. We'll have all we need over at the derelict scrapyards in the Grey Zone..." Her eyes snapped as she glanced up from the hapless assistant on the other side of the comm and she addressed the Committee in a more normal voice: "The Doctor says to repair the scanners as quickly as possible by the Kirkwood Gap; the Androgums are planning a coup and here's why..." She repeated word for word the Doctor's assessment while it was still fresh in her mind, stopped to take a deep breath, and hit them with the bombshell:

"He also says that under no circumstance should anyone attempt to rescue him."

How very odd, she thought as the Time Lords and Ladies reacted to the news. She understood concern and outrage...but why would Lord Goth look...for want of a better word...angry?

As if anticipating another's observation, Goth lifted his hands and coolly asked for calm.

"The Doctor is right." The big man told them. "If we devote time and energy to rescuing him, we reduce our evidence for the Androgums' trial."

"We have enough to convict the species!" Ragnar commenced to the unthinkable when he protested against a fellow Prydonion in public. If he was trying to make a point, it was missed: he was still too early in the stages of his new regeneration to be considered _completely_ integrated with the memories of his past. "We have them for approved piracy and wholescale slaughter, slavery, and the buying and selling—not to mention the devouring—of intelligent life!"

"But we have no evidence that they have devoured Time Lords."

All eyes turned to the Grey Lord, who sat at his post as though gravity had struck him numb. With a new and haggard expression, the lean man shook his head. "We have only their spoken word for it, which is not the same as proof because Androgums are well known for their braggart social patterns. They will say the most outrageous things—and claim the most atrocious lies—if it places them in higher standing."

Jokul turned as white as the trim of his new robes. "Are you saying, my comrade," he paused and gulped, "That eating...eating us...is...is..."

"All cannibal species brag of eating us at one time or another." Milo was equally pale, and his usual humor gone. His expertise in medicine was doing his pace of mind no favors. He locked his fingers together and kept to a rare calm as he spoke. Even rarer, Ragnar nodded at him in a show of support. "Oh, how they brag. We see all sorts when we process the reports. But actual, hard proof that the Androgum species are actively seeking us out in order to eat us...that so far has not happened."

"And it is not feasible to sample random specimens of the Androgum population in order to test for traces of our DNA." Sardon rubbed his temples. "No...I loathe the saying of it, but we must follow what Goth has explained so well."

"But the Doctor..." Someone protested.

"The Doctor may be a renegade, and an exile, and a pariah to our society, but he is not afraid to die." Sardon hoped he was getting through to them. "And for a change, his altruism is directed in our favor. We are all in agreement. We will not rescue him until we get the proof we need. If that means we must watch...and record...the unthinkable...then that is what must be."

* * *

On the Androgum ship, the Doctor was holding himself as still as possible. He had even stopped breathing, all senses attuned to the slight, but unmistakable sounds.

Someone was stepping inside the room that housed his prison, and they were doing it as slowly, and carefully as possible.

Androgums were powerful, large beings and lacked grace and agility.

But they could hunt and stalk with the best of the predators.

It was coming for him.

He swallowed dryly, and fought against the pull of the gravity field to pull the little clip from his sleeve. While there were plenty of things in his pockets that could have sufficed, that same instinct that had kept him alive normally refused to employ them. Improvise with the tools on hand and no one would think of him as someone who walked into a situation already weaponized.

The footsteps were slow and stealthy. They crept a patient pace at a time to the black door of his cell. It must be utterly silent on the other side—he wouldn't have heard a thing if he'd been distracted by anything else, but his mental deviation in the Bardo Plane had left all of his senses hyperacute. Useful though it was, he was looking forward to that sensation's ebb.

The soft, heavy foot-falls stopped. Heavy, eager breathing feathered against the blackened glasstic door. He could make out a blurred, bulky shape black against the black, but nothing else.

Hot breath made fog over the tempered glasstic.

Thick fingers rustled and rummaged over the lock Brasher had placed upon the pen.

The Doctor swallowed hard, straining his overtaxed senses to gain any scrap of information that would help his situation, but he could catch nothing.

...nothing, except a new sound. A strange sound.

It was light, pattering and came from the floor, like a soft tapping.

It would pause in silence, then happen again but the pattern wasn't purely repeating. It was random, it-

Oh.

Oh, dear.

The Doctor could only wait. And listen. As an Androgum thief worked to steal him, even as it drooled all over the carpeted floor.


	14. Chapter 14

A heavy blow struck the glasstic; the Doctor flinched at the heavy texture of the sound—wasn't musical at all. A muffled roar of baffled rage trickled through the barriers and into his ears.

Lovely.

Just when the Doctor was consigning his fate to being bait, lights flared and blinded him. He blinked out the blurry spheres dancing over his head to see Brasher and Mirrortooth facing off.

This was not going to end well.

"Looking for something, Mirrortooth?" Brasher dandled a heavy-looking key from a meaty paw.

Mirrortooth snarled, his chin wet with drool. "One of your tricks, Master Fowler." It sounded like a bitter insult.

"I thought to take precautions. Considering how you've infected some of my own students with your lack of...savoir fare at the table." The big Androgum commented with a smile full of ice. "Did you think I wouldn't notice when the specimens go missing?" He lifted his eyebrows.

The smile vanished. "And now you plan to steal my triumph to the Grigs. You dishonor all of us with your slovenly schemes."

"You pretend to be Androgum and yet you eschew the pursuit of pleasure!" Mirrortooth challenged. "Our highest calling!"

"Oh, that's your own short-sightedness, Mirrortooth." Brasher was deadly calm. "The problem is, you think _food_ is my pleasure. It isn't."

And now he smiled.

"It's the hunt."

It took a moment for Mirrortooth to catch on. With a bellow he lunged at his enemy, but Brasher's long knife was between his chest and Brasher's throat.

The Doctor flinched, his face remote as the heavy body folded to the floor, eyes dulling in death even as the limbs twitched and flailed as a second stroke severed the spinal column.

"And so it ends." Brasher commented dispassionately. "I knew you couldn't resist, Mirrortooth. A taste of Time Lord blood?" He shook his head. "Short-sighted." He tipped his head as his apprentices came in upon some unknown signal. "Take it to the back room. Hollow, bleed him out for the sausages. Serrate, I expect you'll find a medium-grind a palatable solution to this gristly old thing." He paid the corpse one last nod of contempt as it was dragged out the door. "Normally I'd tell them to carry it," he confided at the Doctor, "But _any_ tenderizing of the meat will be an improvement."

The Doctor looked away. He couldn't remember being this angry at another being since he was "negotiating" peace with Vaughn.

"Now that that's out of the way, time to move you to more appropriate quarters..." Brasher played with the lock, but the Doctor fought against the gravity as hard as he could, pressing himself against the wall with all his strength. The door opened and the Androgum made a "tching" sound.

"Now, now, don't be silly." Brasher sounded like he was coddling a frightened animal in the stockyards—not too far from the truth. The little Time Lord's eyes were wide and...grey? As he cringed back. "Anyone would think you weren't a Time Lord," he scolded at the little fellow. "Which we both know you are! Why aren't you showing some dignity?" He closed a huge hand over the captive's shoulder, and tugged. The tiny little chap showed surprising determination in not being a help. Brasher sighed, hoping he wouldn't bruise the meat any further than it already was. He stepped partially inside the pen, grabbed hold with both hands, and tugged harder.

As suddenly as if cutting strings, the Doctor stopped resisting. Brasher's heavy strength yanked his smaller, lighter form out of the corner like a ballistic, and, proving this was all part of the plan in his convoluted little head, the little Time Lord dipped into the momentum, slithering under the Master Fowler's arm and outside into normal gravity.

The Doctor whirled around, taking the suicidal maneuver of kicking his legs out from under him by the backs of the knees at the same time he pushed upon the back with all his available strength.

The advantage of being small: a lower center of gravity.

Brasher, propelled by the momentum, took one large step to correct his balance. That was all it took; the door shut after him before he'd finished turning around—and the Doctor was dialing up the gravity meter to the highest possible setting. Not that he expected it to hold an Androgum for long—they could give an Ice Warrior a bad moment in battle, and they were usually faster.

The Androgum howled, hammering against the glass, fighting the chain of gravity with frightening strength.

The Doctor didn't waste time with good-byes. He took off running.

* * *

_**Gallifrey**_:

_"I'm going to wear out my regeneration 5,000 years ahead of schedule if this keeps up."_

_"Het'laup, it just happens to be a little bad for morale if you keep voicing what we're all thinking..."_

* * *

The Doctor wasted no time in ducking into a nearby room and sonic'ing the air vent off the wall. With the ease of too-much practice he wriggled in feet first and closed the panel behind him, using the same SSD to seal the screws from the other side.

It is quite often the little things that make the best tricks... the Third Zone saw his little gadget as nothing more than a child's toy—they didn't even keep them in their toolkits, using more sophisticated gravity-manipulators instead of outdated sonics. Had they bothered to search him, they would have (had they recognised it) seen his screwdriver as another plaything—just like his jacks, balls, marbles, playing cards, and ball of string for cat's cradle.

Bad engineering, to mentally create a tier of "grown up" tools...

He paused, drafted a rough diagram in his head of the ship and his most likely location. The holding pens for the prisoners—_no, live cattle,_ he corrected himself sternly, knowing that he had to never forget this point because that was all they were to the Androgums and the usual prisoners/hostages/criminals situations wouldn't fit at all.

He moved as far as an intersection within the dank, dark and very unclean shaft and sat up (Rassilon, but he liked being small! The advantages outweighed the disadvantages!). With a frown he focused his night vision as he pulled out his 500-year diary.

Androgums...Androgums...

Cannibals; social architecture...

Here we are...

Being cannibal species did not actually mean that species was morally bankrupt; some of his best friends were cannibals. The Original Doctor had collected quite a few warm and pleasant observations about the rare cultures on Earth...and on not a few other planets.

The difference was, the majority of cannibal cultures lived in areas where protein was at a premium. They ate to survive; they _didn't_ eat other beings out of fun or for pleasure's own sake. That was make as little sense as killing and eating any living creature for fun or pleasure's own sake. To make sure it never went further than that, their cultures built up a large degree of social responsibility.

It was an interesting fact that the majority of the species in the Universe refused to eat other species that fit their culture's definition of intelligence, feeling the level of intellect made it into a _de facto_ case for cannibalism. The Doctor personally saluted any attempt to reach a common ground across the species.

Androgums were unfortunately the exception to the general rule.

Androgums were fortunately the **only** exception to the general rule. It was in their genetic coding to eat other and intelligent species.

Perhaps thousands of years ago, when their species was still in its manufactured infancy, matters had been different. Well, they were too far gone now! And that was the whole meat—that is, the kernel—er, the nut—bother. The SUM of the problem. There. An analogy that didn't sound edible! The little Time Lord flipped through the pages, dowsing through memory and following half-suspected leads in the paper leaves. Androgums were a manufactured species, created as an amalgamation during one of the Third Zone more contemptible wars. Designed to wipe out the opposing race and "leave no trace" the brutish beings took their directions with literal translation, and ate the remains. No one realized Androgums possessed a rudimentary form of memory transfer, though they should have, in hindsight, closely examined the donor species for their creation. The carnivorous vulpines used for much of the genetic stock had been in possession of this to an unusually high degree.

Then again, hindsight usually was 20-20...

By the time their creators had the chance to make some atrocious and tasteless jokes about waste, it was too late. The Androgums had developed a taste, and turned on their creators. Ever since, Androgums had existed as 'that embarrassing problem' with Third Zone Society.

_Right. Here we are. Androgum culinary cultural norms..._

Oh, my word.

The Doctor re-read through the painfully neat writing he used to have, shuddered at a few overly-illuminating details, agreed with his original's assessments and acerbic opinions wholeheartedly, and quickly stuffed his diary back into his large coat. Moving partially by memory of his brief passage through the ship, and partially by the memory of antiquated Third Zone craft, he aimed to the most likely location for the frozen Colonists.

The pale slips of mechanical illumination brushed against him at odd angles, revealing a face that no longer looked clownish or foolish.

It was grim resolve, a Lungbarrow-born pushed too far.

"_What's going on?" _

The Doctor almost paused as the words trickled against his ears. He just as quickly realized it for a psychic echo, and kept going, his face even more of a mask than before. Just his luck he was starting to pick up psychic imprints from that old TSV.

"_I think he's getting ready to do something."_

"_That's a frightening face he's got on."_

"_He's planning something. Something big."_

"_No. He's already planned it. He's on his way to do it. I've seen that look before—when his mind's made up, he'll not change it. He's getting ready to do something he doesn't want to do, and that's enough to scare anyone."_

_You have no idea, you puffed-up popinjays._ The Doctor thought this, but kept the thought roundly shielded He might hear their thoughts, but he didn't want to return the courtesy. He was already swimming in a deep pool of dislike for what he was about to do.

Rarely did he have to make a judgment call such as this one!

Long-depth tactics hadn't been his forte in over a hundred years—ever since Sardon decided to get _very_ serious about "the original plan" with his contract.

_If I really have served for a hundred years,_ he thought grimly as he slithered around a pathetically outmoded and frighteningly rust-speckled coupling ring for large, live electrical cables. The dust was so thick in this neglected space he half-imagined it was sliding up his wrists and into his sleeves with each slide of his palms forward. (At least it kept him from listening to the tiresome Time Lord chatter in the back of his head)

Initially he had chosen to keep his mouth shut with the Grey Lord over that illicit Matrix-coding. He wasn't supposed to know about it. But the fact of the matter was, Sardon had a copy of his least favorite agent hidden deep in a library large enough to swallow Jupiter. And for what purpose? It was high time they started talking about it.

Assuming he survived this mess so he _could_ talk about it...

* * *

"Master?"

Brasher did not appear to hear his apprentice at first. He was standing before a large wall-map of his ship. Stroking areas turned them red instead of their usual dark blue, and he made these changes whenever he got a report on a place successfully searched without fruit.

Serrate swallowed and moved forward, "Master, will the Time Lord be likely to hide close to the bays? Thinking he may escape?"

"He may think it," Brasher admitted, still without turning his head. "But will he? This is a trickster, Apprentice. Time Lords are succulent and toothsome, but usually without imagination and...the savor of battle." He paused long enough to exhale through his nose at the pity of it. "It hardly seems fair that something that tastes so good can be so normally dull and...insipid in personality."

"Sir?"

"Except for this one." Brasher added under his breath. "Something different about him, his scent is richer. The bouquet is layered. If I didn't know better, I would say he carries elements of Tellurian in him."

Tellurian? Serrate was wide-eyed at the thought. "A hybrid, sir?"

"Possible. It is scientifically proven that hybrids can carry the most desirable attributes of both parent species..." Brasher listened to a new report, nodded, and stroked a new section of deck to red. "But tempting though that is, Time Lords do not keep consort with other beings. They consider it bad business—whatever that means."

The big Androgum mused thoughtfully over his map. Over 2/3rds of the ship was now accounted for.

"He must have eaten Tellurians in the past." Was the final decision. "Nothing else makes sense." He lowered his hand from the map and pressed a code into the speaker. "Mastic," he muttered, "Are you finished with the freezers?"

* * *

"Almost, sir." Mastic was—even for an Androgum—thick and brutish looking. His Grig had the palatial preference for eating species designed for power, more than intelligence and cunning. Still, no one had cause to criticize their work or work performance—so long as they were crystal clear on instructions.

The storage freezers were almost 1/5th of the ship's storage space. It was even larger than the live pens because it was equipped to help salvage food, swiftly. Living overtly on the sly required some sacrifice of basic Third Zone architecture.

He held his comm-piece in a large, square hand, and watched as his men filed fast, shaking their heads in the negative one by one. "No sign of touching the freezer doors, no sign of tampering." If he was puzzled at the strangeness of the orders, it was not his place to question.

Nor was it Serrate's, and he didn't flatter that his status as apprentice made a bit of difference. But his curiosity burned to be satisfied.

* * *

"Very good, Mastic. Move your men to the Docking Bay and search there. Pay particular attention to the ins and outs. He will be trying to escape."

Brasher stroked the spaces red and glanced at his apprentice.

"We are up against a Trickster, boy." He said mildly, but the reproach was there. "Tricksters are fence-testers. It's their nature to be where you don't expect them to be. Thus, we must be thorough."

Serrate bowed his head. "Yes, Master. I will remember."

Brasher chuckled softly. "Where are you, little one?" He asked under his breath. "I taste your blood still. The life within it. You will not stay hidden for long. You are no good at hiding, I think. You are better at running."

* * *

Deep in the ship's hold, the last Androgum stepped past the jamb that marked the archway into the ship's freezer.

It would be wrong to call it a door. It wasn't a door at all, but a giant, Androgum-sized lock. Instead of the usual glasstic or transparent metal hatches, Brasher had considerately made the doors opaque. It was just mindless torture to keep all that food within sight of Androgum eyes.

On the other side of the door stretched row after row of freezer doors covered in thick frost. As Brasher had ordered, his men had examined them for signs of tampering.

They had seen nothing, save the usual disruption of frost that was to be expected when the frozen Colonists were transported into the storage holds.

So they didn't look further.

It was Brasher's own fault. The obvious can be the first thing to overlook. Humans know this phenomenon as 'hiding in plain sight.'

Besides. There were security cameras.

Long minutes passed as the compressors hummed away.

Then one of the locked hatches opened from the inside.

Careful not to touch—and stick—to the subzero metals, the Doctor slithered out of the frosty maw of the strongest freezer. His hair had turned white from the snows, and his coat was more suited to an outdoor wedding in Brighton, but he was definitely alive.

His face was almost as pale as the coating of ice about his chops; keeping mental tabs on Androgum species was not advisable—he doubted even the Great Pythia could keep it up for more than a few hours, and he had only done this for a few minutes!

Feeling every inch of his 500+years, the little Time Lord ducked under the blind spot of the security camera and blew on his hands, stamping his feet and shaking the snow out of his hair before it melted freshets down his back.

Not a second to spare, he scowled. Androgums certainly liked to take their time! What a lot of trouble they were causing him, just by being themselves! Pausing only to bang ice out of his left ear, the Doctor re-opened an innocent-looking panel in the wall. It was a trick and a half to get a security camera to believe what you wanted it to see...and with Third Zone imagination designing it all, the effects were usually temporary.

Holding his breath, he tinkered with a few of the more promising relays, and played mix n'match with some of the conduit tabs.

There. The cameras wouldn't see him at all when he walked past. Well—they would see him, but they wouldn't believe it. Lovely how so-called manufactured sentience in machines were really only reflections of their creators' greatest flaws...

Now to get this highly unpleasant business over with...

The little Time Lord rubbed his hands one last time, and strolled to the Master Control panel for the compressors.

Many floors above his head, Master Fowler Brasher was scowling like a thundercloud and struggling to figure out why he couldn't shake off a certain suspicion.

It could likely be from the fact that it had been quite a long time since he'd last eaten Time Lord. One's memory is never what one wanted it to be. But still...

He comm'd to the Tower. "How long until we dock in Androgum space?"


	15. Chapter 15

_**Gallifrey:**_

"Those Androgums _are_ as stupid as they look..." Het'laup's voice trailed off.

Sardon looked at him. "Yes...?" He asked politely.

The other cleared his throat. "Well, we know he's not half-human. That's absurd."

"I know. Pity. It would explain _so much_." Sardon sighed wistfully for the what-ifs before realizing this was a guarantee of annoying the two other Prydonions in the room. _Well, beg your puffed-up Patrexes' pardon, but not everyone can authorise the use of a Chameleon Arch to legitimize one's House..._ "He just associated with them for a long time, that's all. He wears their clothing still and eats their food when he's in the field. I'm not surprised the Androgums are confused and that confusion may save his life."

"Humans aren't as harmless as they look!" Jokul protested. "They're violent and mercenary and..._chaotic_! They're slaves to their primitive natures!"

"They're laboring under a misconception as to his capabilities." Sardon reminded them. "If there is _anyone_ who can take advantage of misconception...it is how he hides."

* * *

But right now, the Doctor was hiding from _everything_, not just his enemies. If he was being observed by the CIA's laughable technology (and one overworked, underthanked telepathic tech who _really_ wished Time Lords would keep their opinions about breeding to a deeper chasm in their skulls), it was all being kept blissfully, fantastically, glorious quiet.

And he was taking swift advantage of this quiet time—he now had a good suspicion as to the source of his previous spells of mindless pain and pressure. There was no telling if and/or when the TSV would hiccup and send him another dose of it all.

The Androgums' freezer was completely unlike that of the _Feathered Sun_. It was state-of-the-art, and whispered quietly to itself. Its fuel-efficient auxillary cells were powered by beamed in relays from the solar sails stitched in the skin of the ship. It was one of the most impregnable portions of the fortress in the Androgum craft.

_Nothing_ got in the way of an Androgum and a perfect meal, and Brasher was mindful of his duties in keeping that perfect meal perfect so the rightful owners could get it unscathed.

Row after row of Androgum prey rested in processed, preserved death under the cold. Among them the corpses of the Colonists were crammed into the individualised storage units. Rarely one if they were large, but more often two and even three to a chamber—they were locked in icy chests with clear glasstic walls leached of any harmful vapours. Only the barest rime of frost touched the oldest units.

The Colonists were undeniably dead, and his hearts ached for the loss of life. In the better light he could recognise them for the Denilaccan—distant cousins of Tokish, Space Gypsies. Wanderers through space, outcasts from the horrible Minyan War that left their own planet devoid of water. They accepted the contempt other species had for the "planetless" and suffered menial chores and hoped for better. If they had been colonising...they had actually found a planet willing to take them in.

It went against his personal choice to use them...but these people were dead—man, woman and child.

But in death they could save lives.

And if these really were the people he remembered from his original incarnation, they would not blame him for what he was about to do to their mortal remains. After life, the body was so much waste to jettison out the airlock.

He looked at his TARDIS key sadly. It was small, but the metals of its composition were far stronger than the Earth-bound alloys from which it imitated.

When it wasn't a key, it was a fairly passable element in his new recorder: a gift from a few grateful former clients in the Horsehead Nebulae... The High-gravity Technotites took their music very seriously.

He hoped they would forgive him for this...

Already composing a florid letter of apology, the Doctor took a deep breath and yanked on the casing housing an interesting-looking panel. It groaned and complained, and it was sealed with ice as much as metal-weld and adhesive, but using the key-tip as a chisel paid off. With a SPANG! The metal sheet went flying.

_There we are..._

With a ferocious scowl on his face, the Doctor teased out a few wires, memorised where they were emerging from the console itself, wrapped his hand in his silk handkerchief for insulation. He held his breath and stabbed.

The circuit burst.

The Compressors went out...but there were no alarms.

No attempts at backups.

No alerts, no panicky computer sending panicky messages to its crew.

So far, his earlier sabotage was working.

Already feeling warmer, the Doctor pulled back and breathed. And just for good measure, found what remained of the backup relays in the wall, and ground them to dust. A few quick jabs on the parasitic elements of the circuits and any power would divert back to the source instead of where they were supposed to go.

There.

Now to go find the _living_ victims.

The Doctor had found a map of the original ship's diagram in the computer, but he doubted it was still accurate. Still...it was in the right general area—close to the VIP housing. The Master Fowler would want to stay close to his subjects. Had the Doctor escaped in the opposite direction, he may very well had ran straight into the stockpens. He shuddered and banged the panel into place...and started moving.

* * *

Updeck, Brasher had finished glowering at his map.

He was missing something, and it wasn't just the little Time Lord.

The big alien never really looked in a good mood even when he was. His face was noble and ponderously magnificent according to Androgum standards, but it was not reassuring. He stroked his many warts thoughtfully, pausing to tap the one decorating his nose with a fingertip—his usual mannerism of thinking. He toyed with one of the ivory beads hanging from his ear. He made wind-chimes of the bone-names woven into his beard. The names of his enemies tinkled as he thought.

He hummed a low ditty under his breath about the wisdom of being prepared:

"_For need of a stone, the edge was gone,_

_For need of the edge, the knife was gone,_

_For need of a knife, the hunt was gone,_

_For need of a hunt, the fight was gone,_

_For need of a fight, the bets were gone,_

_For need of the bets, the money was gone,_

_For need of the money, the beasts were sold,_

_For need of the beasts, the pot was dry,_

_For need of the soup, the Grigs came a-calling..."_

It wasn't _just_ a charming nursery-rhyme to sing the children to sleep. Like all nursery rhymes, this one was rooted in facts so old it had passed to legend: A proud and powerful Grig had suffered so many economical losses from gambling the rival Grigs had come to visit "and stay for supper"...forcing the host to cook up members of his own hungry Grig rather than shame his guests with a dry pot.

Only the wily old Patriarch had thought ahead, and served his enemies to his starving Grig. Charming story that it was, Crackmarrow Broth was _still_ an undefeated favorite at the table—especially in times of war.

If hunger is the best sauce, the story that goes with the meat is the only appropriate wine.

"Where are you, little one?" Brasher whispered. His nostrils were flaring, his soul aching for the thrill of another hunt.

* * *

The Doctor had happily fled the freezer space and was now hiding in a library cranny. As he'd suspected, it hadn't been used in generations. But with a bit of cleverness and some illicit technology, the long-disused data portals would be good for hacking into the ship's mainframe.

Welcome to a life term in the CIA: Infiltration, Interference, and Espionage...

The little Time Lord hurried to the nearest memory portal and yanked out the CIA storage unit. He plugged it in after a furtive glance about, and put his back to the computer wall, just in case some mutant of an Androgum might have the desire to clock in some paid time. While this small act of Data Hijinks was commencing (he had to admit his conscience was surprisingly silent on this subject), he studied the dark, cool room.

He wondered how long the Androgums actually had this ship. It had to be at least a thousand years old; the writings on the walls were Third Zone Standard, and the block-print style was consistent with the first three hundred years of TZS. The fact that the letters didn't look as though they'd ever had a fresh coat of paint since first installation told him the current captain had a shaky grip on priorities.

That reminded him of Captain on the _Feathered Sun_. He really ought to do something to-

**Cheep**.

He jumped slightly, then looked. Reassured it was nothing more than a Routine passing through the system, he returned to his thoughts at a hastier speed.

His plans were still in the germination stage—probably still a zygote if one wanted to make a Word Cloud of the concepts floating around his skull...but there was still plenty of room for improvisation and adaptation.

Room, yes. But time...

Hmnnn.

Hunter. So that was the name of the ship. Not surprising. The Doctor's fingers danced over the keys, pulling up page of page of information for future use. The CIA's memory unit had just enough room to pirate everything in the (limited) database.

Luckily for him, Androgums channeled their energy and creativity into but a few fields, leaving the rest (such as computers and aerospace travel) to mendacity and conservatism. The Unit sucked up copies of the banks with such speed he fancied it was insulted at the paltry quality of data it was imbibing.

He chuckled as it cheeped FINISH. It almost sounded like a hiccup after a too-sugary meal.

"_**This is Master Fowler Brasher o'Quawncing Grig."**_

The rough, rumbling voice sounded very impressive over the shipwide intercoms.

"_**Everyone stand by for an important message."**_

"Drat," The Doctor muttered.

"_**Search your stations, search your quarters. Be watchful for anything out of the ordinary. We have an escapee from the stockpens." **_ Pause. _"__**A lively little biped, two thrams in height, 60 Gor'tel in liveweight. Hair black going grey. Eyes indetermined colour. This is a Time Lord selected for the Grigs of the Homeworld! I needn't tell you the importance of finding our Lords-and-Ladies' Guest at the Feast!"**_

"_Future skeleton at the feast," _The Doctor said under his breath.

The Doctor listened as he imagined the entire psychic imprint of the ship dropped to the belly of the hold.

"_**This is not your ordinary Time Lord. It is a wild Time Lord. Approach it with caution and do not do so alone. It is vital we catch it. Be warned that it has been lightly wounded from the boarding, and it may be operating on instinct instead of intellect. Again, approach with caution..."**_

Oh, splendid.

Someone murmured something off-screen to Brasher.

"_**Don't be silly."**_ Brasher scolded reproachfully. _**"A wild Time Lord is still a Time Lord. There's no sense in threatening the other beasts. They don't care one whit about any other species. Just their own."**_

The Doctor exhaled, giddy in relief. Well. That was a useful twist! Normally someone was being held up as a hostage to his good behavior! Nice to know that his people's detestable reputation preceded him! He beamed and wiped his brow with his handkerchief, sending up a mental thought to the Quantuum Forces that are affected by such mental thoughts.

Enough of that. He had to go find the prisoners-and Tokish especially.

* * *

_**Gallifrey:**_

It was another mess with the TSV, but Karnak was learning to be very quick about repairing the fraying wires. The Committee treated themselves to a quick rest and refreshment as a harassed-looking tech came up with armloads of mysterious and dusty antiquated equpiment that Karnak fell too with a will.

"You took long enough," she scolded him once.

"I was shaking everything out," he protested. "There might have been eggs still inside the-" Overcome, he gulped hard.

"And thus, the Grey Zone has been shortened by one less miracle," the woman grumbled under her breath, wiped a rockcrystal semiconductor on her sleeve, blew on it, tapped it with a fingernail and looked satisfied at the tinkling sound. "This ought to give us a few more hours."

"The Outsiders are demanding we replace the junk we 'stole' with an equal amount of junk." The poor man was telling his superior. "Something about how the cobras need the habitat."

"Outsiders are conservationalists?" Karnak wondered as she found and gave another handful of semiconductors the same brusque treatment as the first.

"I don't know anything about that. They did say something about how responsible environmental management was the key to economic equity..."

Sardon's long fingers rested neatly inside his large sleeves, hidden while he quietly keyed private commands to his assistant. The boy wasn't as smart as the late, lamented Luco, but he at least lacked his initiative (thank Rassilon). Once given a clear problem he would be relentless on it.

As he'd stated earlier, he had seen that look on the Doctor's face before.

So many people wanted that little renegade to 'grow up' and be a 'real Time Lord,' whatever that meant. (Sardon had all he could do not to look at Goth while he was thinking the problem over).

The tragedy of the matter was, the Doctor would never be a 'real' Time Lord. Not while their definition of what a real Time Lord remained so inflexible and uninspiringly dull.

Had he only been born in more...active times, the Doctor would be everything they wanted him to be: a leader of his people, a consultant of wisdom, and a fountain of knowledge.

When the Doctor was a real Time Lord, things inevitably went bad for people around him.

Sardon knew from experience that things were about to get very busy, possibly bloody...and when the stellar dust dispersed...it would be a lot cleaner.

He just had to make certain _he_ wasn't one of the things about to be swept out with the rubbish.

Something crackled. The TSV bloomed back to life.

"We've got it!" Karnak crowed.

And then she gasped.

* * *

"Got you!"

The Doctor yelped at the top of his lungs as two large meaty paws clamped down on his shoulders. Just as quickly, his feet left the floor.


	16. Chapter 16

"_Well, that's that." _The Doctor's voice floated through the air.

"_Eh?" _Asked another voice_—A young man's._

No, that wasn't a sound for the air.

She'd heard it in her _mind_.

Karnak jumped slightly, up to her left shoulder in dusty old TSV equipment. The uncalculated connection was broken; the idle (and increasingly infuriating) Time Lordian chatter about the table ceased.

"Is there a problem, Technician Karnak?" Sardon asked in his usual quiet, authoritative manner.

"Not at all. The TSV is recalibrating itself and it will take a few minutes in order to catch up with the RealTime events you see on the screen." Karnak shook her head, wondering how tired she was, and how very tired she was getting with all these prim and proper Time Lords. Blessed Ancestors, she wanted a nap, a frosty glass of ja'ar, and a walk around the sand-parks. Not in that order, just _any_ order. As she shook her head, her fingers pressed just a bit more against an unseen element in the TSV.

"_I said, 'that's that.'" _It was the Doctor's voice again, and she felt his worry.

She saw his worry.

The image of the Doctor on the screen was superimposed by the image in her mind: The old TARDIS flickered in her third eye, and she could see the Doctor in the forefront; younger than ever, without a whit of grey in his thick hair. His clothing was markedly different: instead of the his usual golden brown check trousers that swam about his ankles he was sporting a dark blue-black pattern of tesselations (the mathematician in Karnak approved wholeheartedly, because everyone knew tesselations were a sign of good breeding).

No, not tesselations. "Shepherd's Check", "Hounds-Tooth"

The name of this pattern sounded odd and tasted odd as she mentally repeated herself.

Not an emblem of good breeding on the planet that wove this, but a sign of...wealth? Monetary comfort and advancement.

_A restless pattern. It reconfigures in Earth designs and Earth art every 20-30 years or so. Precise and playful. Like Humans themselves. It was why he liked it; it reminded him of himself in his childhood...and how humans were in their own childhood stage of development. They had fun together._

Karnak mentally gulped as the renegade's insight bled into her psyche. This inadvertent mental eavesdropping was not professional, and while she knew it was a part of the crazy old TSV equipment, she couldn't blame a faulty machine if she was the one using it!

_Using it on orders..._

The woman knew better than to tell anyone, these non-telepaths, that she was temporarily trapped in a bubble of memory. For some reason the Doctor was dwelling on this moment in the past, and she did not want to tell them anything about his deepest thoughts. It was bad enough they were watching every move me made.

Or not made.

The Doctor had been transfixed, immobile, for the better part of an hour inside a claustrophobic little, square-shaped chute. Static made his hair rise up in all direction, like a fibre-optic fountain, and he braced himself with the soles of his battered old shoes for support in the confines as he rustled through his pockets—one after the other—looking for something.

As far as the Time Lords were concerned, this was all that was going on.

Karnak was haplessly trapped in a sharp, clear memory of his mind, so strong that her telepathic mind was forced to pick it up. And she really did not want to. At best she felt like a small child sneaking forbidden holo-programs at night when her parents thought she was asleep.

On the other hand, if she was the reason why the Doctor was feeling these sporadic and helpless jags of mental pain and discomfort...

_...the least I can do is tuck it in and soldier it through, _she admitted to herself. Truth hurt, but unanswered accountability for one's actions hurt even more. It may be an accident, but she still had hurt him.

So she'd best keep quiet about any discomfort his memory was causing her.

Outside her mental arguing with herself, less than half a second had passed.

She breathed out, and pressed the faulty connection tighter. "The TSV is recalibrating, my Lords and Ladies." The Tech told them in her usual professional tones. "Less than five seconds and the Real Time will be compensated."

_A beautiful young man was the source of the other conversation. Jamie. His name was Jamie._

* * *

"_That's That."_

_When nothing met this intelligent statement, not even an 'oh, aye,' the Doctor glanced over the Time Rotor to give Jamie a careful look._

_The young Scot was sprawled as usual in the Doctor's favorite old wooden chair, but there was a new look on his young, expressive face._

_He was gnawing at his thumb in an uncharacteristic display of concern._

"_What is it, Jamie?"_

_The Jacobite did not answer at first—which also was unlike him. His good, honest nature was not suited for silences—he always knew what he was going to say._

"_D'ye think we're doing all right wi'Zoe?" He asked flatly._

_The Doctor was quite accustomed to Jamie's blunt candor, and welcomed it. "I don't know what you mean by that, Jamie. She seems to be doing fine."_

"_Aye, fine, she's havin' fun...but she's really choost a bairn when ye think of it." Jamie shook his head, and his thick brown hair went flying. "She's clever and smart, but she hasn't seem much o' the world, has she?"_

"_One would say that about you as well, Jamie." The Doctor laughed and tugged off his coat, hanging it on a coat-tree perched incongruously in the Console Room. His long, puffed sleeves had been sliced neatly off just at the elbows, and a stray thread hung down from his left. His clothes made him look small and shriveled up, but an athlete's body moved beneath it. There was power inside his exterior shell—sleeping power._

"_Or for that matter, for any of us. Isn't that why we're here in the first place? To see the Universe?"_

"_Aye, mebbe, but that's only part o' what I meant. She went straight off to the Wheel an' she's too young t'have much wisdom on things. Remember how she was when we first met her?" He shuddered. "She didn't really knoo what it was tae have feelings."_

"_I think the fact that you treated her no differently than anyone else caught her attention." The Doctor pointed out. He leaned against the Console, one foot neatly tucked behind the other foot's ankle. "She was clearly the youngest member of the crew. Just for that reason alone would make it difficult for people to interact with her."_

"_Well, could be she's learnin' too fast."_

"_Jamie, what's really gotten you all bothered about Zoe?"_

"_Och." Jamie's look was weary. "She's too much like ye, Doctair. Trouble finds her choost as fast. I get worried whenever she goes off to do her own thing."_

"_But she was forming a friendship with Isobel."_

"_Aye, and I'm glad. But those two could'a died if we hadn't saved them."_

"_There were many times we all could have died, you know." The Doctor chided as gently as possible. When Jamie was worried about something, the only solution was to let him run it out._

"_Look, all I'm sayin' is, she's either too smart fer her own guide...or...she blunders off intae trouble heedless." There was no mistaking that look from the Jacobite._

_The Doctor cleared his throat. "But if she and I are too much alike, as you put it, why are you wanting me to do something about it?"_

"_Because ye both knoo when tae listen tae this," Jamie tapped his forehead, "o'er this." He tapped the heart-spoon of his chest. "And she's been in a bit o'a gloam since we left Earth."_

"_Well, yes...she did say she hoped to see Isobel again someday..." The Doctor's voice grew uncertain. "Come to think of it, where is she?" He looked around as if his attention would magic her out of the air._

"_I saw her putterin' aboot in that room o' funny toys a while back." Jamie shrugged._

"_Toys—oh." The Doctor remembered. "Oh." He said again. "Oh, my. Perhaps I'd best go see to her..." He quickly wiped his hands on a rag and stuffed it into a pocket in his hanging coat. "Mind the store, would you, Jamie?" He asked. _

"_Mind it frae' what?" Jamie called after him._

"_Just let me know if the readings do anything different from what they're doing now." He called back, quickening his steps through the hall to Susan's old Nursery Room._

* * *

_The Doctor hadn't thought of the Nursery in a long time—simply ages, until a few weeks ago when Zoe "discovered" it and promptly went on a tear of eager exploration. For some reason she was needing the Nursery again, and the TARDIS must have obliged her._

_The TARDIS had by now attuned to enough of his brainwaves that it kept the rooms he needed to the forefront. He calculated that by the time another couple of centuries had passed he would be able to go even further on the old craft's understanding—the fact that she permitted his adaptations said a lot about her willingness to increase their bond. _

_Sometimes he wondered if she just felt sorry for him, but that was a dangerous way to think. The old Timeship had been just as alone as himself; it still sickened him to remember how he's been struck at his first sight of her, how beautiful she was._

_Still the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen, and nothing would ever change it. Even his first true TARDIS, a Type 50, couldn't compare but as a sickly shadow._

_But with that initial bloom of exhilaration and delight had come a crushing sensation of sorrow. This TARDIS had been slated for decommission—decommission!_

_A polite word for murder._

_The little Time Lord paused and stroked the smooth white wall with his fingertips. TARDISes, even the modern, soulless ones, were still alive. Decommission meant tearing them apart, cannibalising the useful and expensive bits, and melting down the rest or throwing it in a junk heap with the bones of other murdered TARDISes._

_It had not taken long before the Doctor had had a double mission: To protect themselves from the Time Lords...and also, to protect her._

_His hearts might ache for his people and his planet, but he knew the pain was no less than what rested in her. Susan was the last of her line; so was this TARDIS. Even if you accepted the rumours that there were two more Type-40's gadding about, ghosts stricken off the records and made invisible...they were still lost._

_And since the old Girl had embraced him, crippled and limited his mental powers were in his first incarnation...the least he could do was return the favor._

"_Where's Zoe, old Girl?" He murmured quietly. "Where'd you put the Nursery?" He didn't bother with asking why she let Zoe 'discover' Susan's old playroom. Play was something Zoe didn't understand and that was because she didn't have enough experience with it. It had been one of the more unexpected pleasures of his life to bumble into her playing with some of Susan's old toys—with the same happy excitement his 'little Time Tot" had demonstrated._

_Zoe would have made a good Time Lady._

_The Doctor slowed his walk, sensing the corridors bend and shift with every step._

_Little Zoe, small, clever, and intelligent and brave. She would have been such friends with Susan..._

"_Look, Doctor!" Zoe whirled at him with one of Susan's NOISIER old posi-spheres in her hands. "This is fantastic! Where did you find this! I can only catch it when I'm not thinking about it!"_

"_Splendid!" He clapped his hands together as a very un-scientifically possessed Zoe hopped up and down. "How long did it take you to figure it out?"_

"_Oh, no more than forty-five seconds." Still giggling she stared at the toy in her hand. "But not thinking about it so I could catch it...that took me a bit longer!"_

"_Well, aren't you the clever one," he thought of the infinite number of Time Lords who simply wouldn't believe a short-lived being like a human—and a virtual baby at that—had mastered a toy for a Time Tot._

_And perhaps he shouldn't have, but old habits—and instincts—die very hard and he thought of the game Time Lords played. _

"_Here we go, Zoe! Time for a new game!" _

_Zoe squeaked as he scooped up the little sphere and whispered something out of the range of her hearing. It lit up like an LED firecracker, and hopped out of his hand and over her shoulder, chuckling and clicking as it bounced off the opposite wall and went rolling down the hallway._

"_Doctor! What did you do? What did you say to it?" Half-laughing, the girl started running after the toy. "What game is this? Here, you! Come back! Doctor!"_

"_We're playing Keep Away!" The Doctor scampered past her with an astonishingly battered up old thing in his hands. It looked like a tube made of moth-eaten animal skin or felt, with an illogical edge on one end, the other closed up. "Quick, Zoe! Find a hat! They're easier to catch if you behave illogically!" With a sudden hop the little man kicked up his heels—just like the comedians in the old silent films—and started waving the "hat" around like a hoop-net. _

"_Wh—but-" Zoe soon realized laughing out loud was a severe disadvantage when one was competing with the Doctor on anything. "You can't catch something just by behaving illogically, Doctor!" She ran after him, trying to keep up while she held on to her aching ribs._

"_Of course you can't! That's why you have to not think about them too!" Swoop, hop, skip, the Doctor moved like a demented leprechaun down the hall as the posi-sphere toddled and spun and made suspiciously merry sounds. "Otherwise—unh!" He swung and missed—it danced through Zoe's legs and the Doctor followed it._

_Zoe screamed as the Doctor jumped to his feet and took off running after the sphere—with her hanging for dear life off his shoulder._

"_What's all the—"_

_Jamie stopped in the doorway, his jaw hanging to his sporran at the sight. "Och, noo what?" He groaned. "Did those beasties break oo' o'the zoo again?"_

"_Help us, Jamie!" Zoe was laughing so hard she could barely breathe, much less speak, and the Doctor's constant switch of direction and altitude as he chased after the sphere made it like riding a shaved llama, backwards. She clung to his braces for support, grateful that they were much stronger than they appeared._

_Jamie took one long look at the two, and the odd little gewgaw they were chasing. A gleam lit up his hazel eyes._

"_Think I won't." He said sweetly, and leaned against the wall with his arms folded...all the better to watch._

"_Jamie!" Zoe scolded. _

"_Hah! Got you now, you little—oh, my word!" The Doctor swore in a language neither human could fathom. "You knocked a hole in my favorite hat, you little-"_

"_Och, time tae let that thing die a clean death, Doctor." Jamie calmly pulled a twist of smoked meat from his sporran and gave it a critical examination as his closest friends continued on their merry way to the madhouse. "Polly would a-gree."_

"_Polly was far too concerned with other peoples' appearances!" The Doctor paused and straightened, breathing fast from the effort. The sphere sensed his gaze was no longer on it, and wobbled in a rough ellipse around the little Time Lord. _

_Jamie lifted one brow. "Ah, ye noo Polly. She jest wanted wha's gude for ye."_

"_I don't recall you taking that opinion when she took the barber's shears to your hair!"_

"_That was different!"_

"_That was not different!"_

"_It was!"_

"_It was NOT!"_

_Hanging off the Doctor's back, her cheek grazing the surprisingly painful metal clip in the small of his back, Zoe saw the sphere toddling its way closer and closer. The Doctor had no awareness that his quarry was now approaching the backs of his scuffled-up half-boots. He held her breath and slowly started to inch her hand out..._

"_Was not, I tell you!" The argument was still going full thrusters and aft-engines._

"_Doctor!"_

"_Eh?" The Doctor twisted to look down._

"_You're scaring it off! I almost had it!"_

"_I did not scare it off! I wasn't thinking of it, I assure you! Blame Jamie!"_

"_Och! Ye'll not be draggin' me intae ye're daft wee games!" Jamie snorted. "Besides, I think yon beastie's a bit of a tippler."_

"_It's not a tippler, Jamie. It's a quantitatively accurate gauge for mental focus. A highly advanced and rather expensive device, I'll have you know! The fact that it moves like a Chumblie is immaterial."_

"_Oh, aye...eh?" Jamie straightened up. "What's a chumblie? Is it like a three-legged goat?"_

"_No, no, Jamie! A Chumblie is a Chumblie! I'm sure I explained them to you!"_

"_Um..."_

_Zoe twisted to look up at the Doctor, but all she got was a fine view of the left side of his bright red and yellow braces, his crisp sky-blue shirt with its wing collar sticking in odd directions, and the wild, sooty mes that was his hair. If she looked very hard, she'd see a tip of his earlobe hiding in the depths._

"_Is a chumblie like an isopod?" She asked. "Because this sphere moves like it has an odd number of legs-"_

* * *

And just that quickly, the mental "video" of the Doctor's life melted from Karnak's mind. The TSV was back in RealTime.

She was very, very grateful.

* * *

Androgum ships really had to be one of the most unsung, underappreciated forms of torture in the Third Zone.

For the fourth time in three minutes, the Doctor pinched his nose shut against a new urge to sneeze.

The Doctor's restless nature had its flaws, and the questionable advantage was, he was always finding new flaws. In this particular case, he had vowed he would never again crawl into another dry-goods chute-unless his life or another life was at stake.

_Next time I'll try the garbage chutes,_ he half-promised himself. The build up of static made him edgy and nervous as though a bevy of Daleks were charging up their weapons on all sides. Or like the time that WOTAN thing got his attention...shudders.

The little man hung on to the edge of the chute, peering out at the slightest crack and took a deep breath of relief to see he was finally on the correct floor. Time and Space be thanked; no more climbing about!

He fumbled into his pockets one-handed, gnawing on his bottom lip in concentration. _Ball of string, Vaughn's old radio when Jamie got tired of it...Some of Victoria's hairpins (how could someone be so neat and yet shed them at every opportunity...)...bottle of Polly's ever-present nail polish...let's see...that felt like that whateverthatthing was that Ben kept dropping...oh, yes. Navy can-opener. Not that he ever used it; preferred his pocket-knife...come on, come on, this is the right pocket...always the last thing you find, isn't it?_

_Och,_ he could imagine Jamie's exasperated voice when Polly said that once. _Why would ye keep lookin' after ye find it?_ Giving Ben a roaring seal of approval at Jamie's good common sense and a look of pure scath from Polly at them both. Proving that they hadn't been completely foolish, the young men had chosen not to celebrate their cleverness, but advanced in reverse to the library so they could hide or build up a pillow fort or whatever to fend off the worst of Polly's considerable stores of rage...

...The Doctor couldn't help but smile at the memory. Dear Polly. Thank goodness he'd only see the full force of her rare angers once. But she never did accept defeat well (possibly because she lose so very seldom), and her concentrated war with the TARDIS over his wardrobe had been the stuff of legends. Jamie always made a point of telling the story to new companions...

"_But if a machine can decide what one wears, why are you telling me what I've got is unsuitable?"_

Ah, Zoe. Not only was she as likely to quarrel with a machine as himself...she was just as likely to win that quarrel.

There.

The little man's smile bloomed to a positively childlike glow of delight.

He pulled out the tiny posi-sphere, and bore it to his lips. Once again he whispered unheard commands to the toy.

And lightly tossed it down the hallway.

* * *

At first, Brasher had been rightfully infuriated—nay, inflamed—to be tricked into his own pen but his apprentices were never far and the Time Lord hadn't removed his comm. It was a short matter to arrange his own rescue, but while he was waiting, he was thinking.

But as the search grew ever more fruitless (even his admitted rivals had pitched in to help, because unlike the unlamented future dish of pablum that was Mirrortooth), his own advice came back to him.

If a trickster came with one reliable rule, it was they never completely applied to the rules.

So...the idea that a Time Lord might actually seek out the company of the living cattle...might actually be profitable.

It was an avenue he hadn't explored yet...it was possible he was attached to lesser beings...

He held back, waiting in the shadows with the patience of a good hunter. Even the guards didn't know he was there, watching them.

For some time he just waited. The guards were a good, honest lot and paid well with extra meat for their hours of time. Brasher trusted them with the goods because they were never tempted to take a few bites out of the product. They were far happier with the reward of fine dishes from the Grig's own tables.

There was little to see of the cargo. Once in a while an alien would go up and stand before the barred and re-enforced door. When it was that Perelaccan, the guards would have a bit of fun by telling him to go walk in a circle, backwards, or something similar. The simple-minded beast was at least getting some exercise, and that was good. A strong bit of flesh like that needed more attention. Brasher figured his usual masters were always telling him to do something, for he appeared to get restless when he was idle.

They were now telling him to stand on one foot until he grew tired.

Brasher was watching this, but also keeping his eyes on everything else.

His reward was a tiny flutter of movement, far off to the side.

All his senses sharpened; his vision telescoped to that anomaly.

The guards were not noticing. They were looking elsewhere.

It was the door to the wall-chute used to dispose of the used-up but dry, paper or plastic-based elements used to wrap delicate merchandise and ship's equipment. Nothing went to waste on a Third-Zone based ship; the wrapping sheets were valuable for hundreds of things but they needed to be quickly put up, cleaned, and re-rolled into tubes for storage. Hence there was a chute every fifty steps along the ship's corridors.

For a moment, Brasher couldn't believe what he was seeing. Those chutes were painfully dry and charged with static electricity that was constantly being ground down by dry chemical sprays. Left unattended, they were terrible fire hazards. That someone actually contemplated getting inside one of these chutes...

But, yes, there he was.

Brasher watched, and he was Androgum enough to be impressed as a small hand slipped outside the flapping door. It held something tiny, and with a moment of judgment, threw it hard to the far side of the hallway. It made a strange, high-pitched clicking sound as it rolled and bounced.

His guards instantly stiffened, eyes shooting to the sound. A part of the Master Fowler wanted to tell his men to look alert, but the Fowler in him, the Hunter, wanted to see what would happen and he let events progress naturally.


	17. Chapter 17

It happened quickly. As soon as the Doctor moved too far away from the safety of the chute, a blob of a shadow detached and came up behind him just as his hands were occupied with reaching for the controls at the pen's locking mechanisms.

_"Got you!"_

The Doctor yelped at the top of his lungs as two large meaty paws clamped down on his shoulders. Just as quickly, his feet left the floor.

"Hah!" Brasher gloated. "Amazing what happens when one follows one's own advice!" He commented even as he fought to pin the little Time Lord down. "There was no reason for you to be near those primitives...so of _course_ I'd find you there!" A small fist missed his ear by a hair and he chuckled. "My, my, you do have energy." He commented. "If this is what you people are like in the wild, it really is no wonder you're so rare."

"Put me _down_ you overgrown-" The Doctor snapped, wishing again that whenever his temper was out he didn't sound _quite_ so much like his youthful self.

His original self, though a clever old gentleman indeed, was also the sort who made sure you _knew_ he was doing you a favour by not resorting to violence. Something about his method made one wish he would just strike you down with his walking-stick and be done with it.

Oh, to be that young and crazy again...

"-drooling-" He reverted to Gallifreyan as the Androgum wrestled with him for a lasting grip. The guards were running back, abashed that they'd been remiss in their duties and all hope of his escape was now gone.

His natural stress-valves had just found a delightful outlet—too delightful to ignore, and he kept up a verbal commentary on the Androgum's lineage, habits, hygiene, hair color, warty protuberances, fashion sense, obvious colorblindedness, and everything else he could think while he was in the air getting mangled by a sweating carnivore.

It was the rawest, most inspired session of verbiage he'd ever inflicted on another living being, and it was every argument he'd ever had with the CIA, all in one package—just switch out the names and there you'd have it.

* * *

It was just as well only two people in the CIA session knew he was really cursing them out:

Karnak who was telepathic.

And Sardon, who had long ago realized that the only way to anticipate the Doctor was to assume the worst.

He glanced at the others.

Goth's eyes were watering from emotional pain as the Doctor delved into the newly-discovered frontier of insulting the hairy warts in one's earlobes. Prydonions, for all their cleverness, tended to an overly precise sentence structure and carried a paranoia for linguistic creativity. They didn't like it when people made up words on the spot. No, they didn't like it at all. It smacked of frivolity.

Milvo had forgotten to breathe.

Ragnar hadn't forgotten—he was just holding it in to offset the strain on his hearts.

Sardon mentally shrugged and went back to watching. If the Doctor did survive, he doubted the Androgums would be able to say the same.

In the back of his mind, the Grey Lord was ruminating a growing gnaw of suspicion. While the scanner had so far shown an impressive amount of skill on part of their agent in the field, Sardon had a better measure of the Doctor's capabilities than the rest. And he was getting ever-more convinced that the Doctor could have escaped long ago, but he hadn't because...

Because what?

A sane Time Lord would have ran off at the first opportunity, and no one, not even Goth would have faulted him for showing his intelligence. This was a matter for the Time Enforcers. They did have the authority to invoke a squad of castellans if they had to, and Enforcers had been called for less cause than what they'd seen so far.

_What is the Doctor trying to discover?_

* * *

"Aren't you the little troublemaker." Brasher noted thoughtfully. "I'm starting to wonder, little one. Are you really a renegade...or did they just kick you out of the nest?"

"Yes." The Doctor panted. He had given up trying to overtly struggle for the moment: all the fight had gone out of him like a leaking balloon and now he was hanging in the brute's huge arms like so much exhausted shopping.

"I'm not at all surprised." The Master Fowler draped the Doctor over his shoulder and started walking down the hall to...wherever. "You may as well save your energy for later." He advised. "But at least we don't have to worry about you getting your exercise today."

"What about your prisoners? Do you treat them with as much consideration?"

Sarcasm, as well as a few other nuances, are just _lost_ on Androgums. Brasher took the question as a sensible interaction for food—which of course was the most important thing in the Universe.

"Of course we do. They are regularly aired, fed, and kept clean. We also make the effort to keep them in as natural of an environment as possible for their species." He paid the little Time Lord a reproachful look—which on his face looked quite natural. "We also brush our teeth after every meal. What sort of savages do you take us for?"

"Oh, I don't take you for _ordinary_ savages, I assure you."

_That_ got through. Brasher roared with laughter and lightly slapped him on the leg—it felt like getting hammered with a full-grown carp. "So glad we meet your higher definitions, Trickster." He chuckled as he continued on down the hall.

"_Master! Master!" _

Brasher sighed and stopped walking. "What is it, lads?" He asked patiently.

Serrate and Hollow came gasping up to their Lord, too out of breath to talk. Brasher waited with an elder's stoicism as the young fellows heaved and choked for air even as they fought to tell him what was happening.

"Sthfgh'eezers!" Serrate finally wheezed out.

"Eh?"

"Th'freezers!" Serrate gulped. "Something's gone wrong with them! They've started thawing all the food! We can't stop it!"

"WHAT!" Brasher roared.

The Doctor clapped his hands over his ears, but his bones vibrated.

"The freezers!" Hollow had recovered somewhat. "The computers have gone mad! They are thawing all the food. The technical staff can't stop it!"

"WHY DIDN'T ANYONE RAISE ME ON THE COMMUNICATOR?"

"We tried, Master!" Serrate flinched. "Some sort of electrical field is all over the part of the ship! It's now on a complete electrical blackout conditions!"

"Oh, my word." The Doctor exclaimed. "You don't think it's spreading, do you?" Eyes wide and guilelessly blue, he took in the disastrous news.

"We-"

Brasher stopped.

He completely stopped.

His small, piggy eyes narrowed as well as they could in the circles of protective fat and occipital bone around his eyes. His brow furrowed in on itself, which made some of his warts touch with one another.

His thick lips set.

Time compressed.

The Doctor blinked at him, so innocent of wrongdoing, so earnest in his concern, only a fantastic grade of fool would believe it.

"Did you do that?" Brasher asked very gently.

"Now how could I do that?" The Doctor asked reasonably. "I've been here the whole time."

"Sir? Master?" Serrate peeped. "It just happened, sir. It must have started hours ago. The gauges for the environmental controls have shorted. They're confused with readings they gave two weeks ago."

"How very odd." The Doctor marvelled.

"Isn't. It. Just." Brasher's voice was calm. The veins protruding from his neck and making his warts dance were not.

Serrate and Hollow watched with interchange with interest. They didn't know if Brasher would wring the Time Lord's neck on the spot, but if so, they didn't want to miss seeing it.

"Let the crew know the menu has changed slightly." Brasher exhaled wearily. He was a professional, and he would not be un-professional to his calling. "We will be eating from the freezers tonight." He sighed again, even more heavily than before (which the Doctor hadn't anticipated as possible). "The Grigs will be disappointed, I know, I KNOW we promised them fresh meat...but...needs must. We are not primitives to be wasteful. The live catch will have to wait until we use up or distribute the thawed food from the freezer."

"I could start the smoker, sir." Serrate offered timidly. "That will offset the flavour of being frozen..." He cleared his throat. "Any freezer burn on the meat we can cut off and set aside to create a communal pot...the severely frozen areas can be slivered and used for bait when we go hunting Drashigs." (The Doctor could not restrain a gulp of horror at this pronouncement)

"Always gratifying to see that a student has been listening to his elders." Brasher puffed up just a bit. "Yes, do that. Choose the larger specimens for it. The older jacks. Send the juvenilles and larvae to the upstairs kitchens for soups and stews. That leaves the jills. Give those a good examination. We may be able to salvage some passable roasts. It ought to depend on the amount of body fat on the carcass...

"And _you_," Brasher said sternly, giving the little Time Lord a shake that rattled his teeth in his jaw, "_Are not leaving my sight_." He was still angry, but unfortunately for the Doctor's plans, was still completely in control. "I can't prove it, but _know_ you're behind this disaster somehow."

"You sound like Goth." The Doctor sighed.

"And who would this poor Goth be?"

"Hmn? Oh. Nobody you'd know." Brasher started walking down the hall, but since his quarry was in a position of non-violent protest, he had to deal with the little Time Lord dragging the heels of his much-mistreated shoes against the electrical grounding carpet of the hall. Despite the sound effects, which were something like rubbing a length of felt across a giant lightbulb, his captive was determined to explain in great detail, even though he had to explain at the top of his lungs to be heard: "A puffed-up, self-important and completely dull dishrag of a bureaucrat. No imagination, no _savoir_, no appreciation for anything outside of rubberstamping and red-taping." The Doctor found he had enough energy for this little speech _and_ a glare through the fringe of his hair. "He thinks he's got the knack for command, but really, I wouldn't put him in charge of polishing the the Vampire King's chess-set!"

"I dislike my superiors too." Brasher waved off his apprentices and went to the nearest lift. "I deal with them by imagining how they would make a _superior_ dish at the table." He caught the expression on his little captive's face. "Waste not, want not."

"You can't hardly waste something you don't want." The Doctor muttered under his breath. He was given a friendly shake for his troubles.

"Now, now." Brasher said mildly.

"On second thought, you'd probably enjoy eating _him_."

"Ordinarily, I might agree with that...Time Lords are a rare delicacy...but I fear," Brasher paused long enough to look wistful, "You may be changing the form of the table, as we say back at the Grigs."

"I'm pleased to say I don't follow you." The Doctor said truthfully. "You couldn't possibly have eaten so many of my people to consider yourself an..." He stopped just long enough to give Brasher a very critical one-up and one-down with his eyes. "..._expert_." He finished with a tone of voice that was not, shall it be said, considered prudent or discreet when amongst Androgums.

Brasher the Fowler stopped dead in his tracks.

* * *

**On Gallifrey:**

"Oh..." Milvo closed his eyes, already composing a farewell speech to the little renegade at his Memorial. He hoped he had enough time to do it.

"Yes he did." Ragnar said in heavy disapproval.

_"Be silent!"_ Sardon hissed.

They all looked at the Grey Lord, who was leaning forward, poised like a raptor about to strike upon his prey. Every scrap of his attention was on the Scanner, his lean, aesthetic face chiseled taut as Rassilon's harpstrings.

Sardon the Grey was never emotional. Not unless things were very bad indeed.

Responding to the low murmur within the Time Lord _intelligentsia_, the others complied, and focused their own attention to whatever it was that had Sardon so upset.

* * *

"You," Brasher said very slowly and carefully, with a deep glow of a red-hot coal burning in the depth of his piggy little eyes, "speak to me in such a way?"

The Doctor had been expecting it, but he still gasped as he was thrown up against the wall, with Brasher's hand around his throat the only obstacle between himself and the floor.

"I am Brasher." The Androgum hissed. "Brasher the Fowler. I am the Hunter of the Grigs, the Broadener! My hunts have gathered honors untold and unmatched among the Androgums! It is because of me, ME! That we have tasted the succulence of the Third Zone!"

SLAM. The Doctor's pockets rattled.

"Oh, you've eaten a few Minyans. Very impressive." The Doctor taunted. "I'm sure they were full of flavour, they-" His speech cut off as he was hoisted up again.

"I have eaten twenty Minyans!" Brasher roared. "Twenty! I am no primitive beast who only knows one meal from the next! I have eaten twenty, but I am no mindless glutton! I have served more of my catch to my own people than I have tasted! I have served up _threescore_ to my Grigs!"

SLAM.

The Doctor yelped as he was again pushed into the wall—nothing that would bruise him, he noted, but he was going to be stunned and weak when it was finally over.

"_Three and eighty_ Karnites, roasted in their own juices for the Spring Banquets. _Twelve_ Martians—_three_ of them for a Royal Wedding! _Two_ Alpha Centurions for a Triple Solstice Feasting! A brace of Cat People for my Grig's Tithe to the High Grig! _Two_ Axons braided into the most delicate knotwork you can imagine and slowly steamed alive for the Coronation of the Francine Grig!" Brasher stopped to wipe the drool from his mouth. _ "I hunted them for months!" _ He panted. "And you imply it is nothing but mindless, consumerist gluttony that leads me to acknowledge my rightful place as the Apex Predator? I have stuffed Balhoon skins with Dulkan sausages. I have grilled Thalls! I feasted on flesh roasted over the very forests of Cheem! _I, who have tasted the meat and blood of six Time Lords and Time Ladies!"_

* * *

"Six!"

Sardon's fist crashed into the table, making cups jump. His other hand swept out, stabbing at his luckless assistant. "Computer search! Six missing Time Lords! Within the Doctor's current Temporal and Spatial Co-ordinates! Search range within Mutter's Spiral and the past fifty years!"

Hearts in his throat, the man jumped to obey.

"All right." The Grey Lord growled at the screen. "You have the information, Doctor. That's plenty. Now get out of there!"


	18. Chapter 18

"So you say." The Doctor shot back. "I believe you, my dear chap. Really."

"_You doubt me, little one?"_

Brasher was slowly growing calmer, but flickers of uncertainty lit the shadows in his skull. He understood challenges, but this one didn't make sense.

"Why would you lie?" The Doctor answered with a question. "I'm a Time Lord, outside your species. You've no need to try to impress the likes of _me_, I'm sure."

Brasher paused again. The two faced each other as he thought. And thought. His darkset eyes glittered. "You play a dangerous game with me, little one." He finally said, and very quietly.

The Doctor met his gaze with his own.

"As do you." He said softly.

"Do I?" Brasher answered in the same voice. It was now on the table: two opponents, toe to toe. The air grew thick with meaning.

"You've just admitted to eating six of my people. They aren't going to like that, you know." The Doctor never blinked. "They like to say they are tolerant of lower species," he drew that out, just long enough for his warden to growl softly, "But that's really a polite lie. We both know what they do when they're angry...that is...when they're caught at being angry." He was not smiling. "Your species is alive only because of a whim they indulged in, back in your distant past." The Doctor lifted his head, eyes shifting from blue to green back to blue. You have a choice now, Brasher the Fowler."

"Oh, do I? What choice would that be?"

"Let these people go, and I'll speak on your behalf before the Time Lords."

"Oh, how generous of you." Brasher's thick lips twitched. "For what? My life?"

"Even I can't guarantee that. But I can argue that your own people deserve the right to survive the anger they will feel at _you_."

Silence again, as each glared into the other's gaze. Neither blinked—neither gave ground in this contest of wills.

"Such altruism on your part!" Brasher might have been purring. "I disgust you, Little Time Lord. I can taste it in the air. And you would still argue on my behalf for your masters?"

"I am against the waste in killing. I serve Life, Brasher."

"And why would I be expected to understand that?"

"You don't have to understand something in order to use it for your own ends."

And this time, Brasher did laugh.

He laughed a long time.

Despite the tragedy of the thawing freezers, he was calm. Nothing like looking ahead for the sake of the future.

If only he knew more of what was going on in his ship. He wouldn't be calm at all.

Nor, for that matter, would be the Doctor.

* * *

Deep in the freezers, Brasher's twin apprentices Hollow and Serrate were running frantically to salvage the frozen carcasses in the freezers. This wasn't even simple in theory: Over half of the stores were the unfortunate Colonists. They had thus been transferred by T-Mat, willy-nilly into the docking bay and then stuffed into each available freezing unit as quickly as possible.

"There's no order to it." Serrate complained to his brother as they directed the low-ranking Androgum servitors to open up each chamber for their inspection.

He was putting it mildly. The freezer was expected to have less burn-damage on the larger carcasses, which mostly meant mature adult jacks. Their master would prefer these for the bulk of the salvage. But the carcasses had not been stored according to age or size or gender as was normal. Each chamber needed to be re-opened (which released more warming air into their chamber and expedited further thaw). If the carcass met with inspection it was sent off with the rest in its category.

The Androgum apprentices were chosen for their sagacity, cunning, and ability to perform as predators. In other words, if they were going to kill and eat their old master someday, they would have to be worthy of the honor. He was determined that when that day finally came, his students would create a funeral banquet worthy of the Great Old Days. They accepted there would be occasional unpleasant jobs for the honour of their post...but that didn't change the fact that they really wished someone else was in this melting, dripping metal-encased marsh.

"That's the last of the jacks." Hollow finally breathed. "And there's less than a hundred juveniles. That leaves about two hundred jills-none of them are old." The rest are the older stores we picked up from that last shopping trip to Earth."

"No more jacks. Good." Serrate wiped his brow, making a face as the sweat of his exertion ran down his warts. "They were the most trouble."

"Aren't they always?"

The twins laughed.

"It's funny because it's true." Serrate agreed.

"I'd rather cook up a jill any day." Hollow smacked his lips. "You always know where the fat is! Less spicing on the grill. Just wrap it all up and let them cook in their own juices."

"Depends on what they've been eating." Serrate scolded. "I never cared for the ones who were too healthy. Not enough savour and you always have to add salt. Unless it's the ribs. You can really chew on those."

The twins were close, but they were Androgums, so underneath all the sibling closeness was sibling rivalry. And they liked their occasional squabbles. It passed the time with unpleasant chores.

And this was a very unpleasant chore. Ice melted and slushed about their boots. By now it was past their ankles and lapping the calves. Once in a while, a gust of cold, wet air blew on their backs as they wrestled another melting carcass atop one of the gurneys. The assisting minions had all they could do to keep the stiff limbs from making a complete mess of freighting.

"Get back here as soon as you can." Hollow growled at the leader of the labourers. Normally he had a good temper with minions, but he was heartily sick of being cold and wet and being around all the meat was just making him hungry. He turned in the slush to mouth a new complaint to his brother, to find the other apprentice smirking at him with a slice of spiced blood-clot in his hands.

"I'd tell you to listen to yourself," Serrate grinned, "But you couldn't eat and talk at the same time."

"I DON'T eat and talk at the same time. It's rude."

"Of course."

"Aren't you starchy." He slogged over and accepted a sliced-off piece. The two hopped up on the relatively drier safety of a floating table and chewed relishing the burst of melting bloodclot upon the tongues.

"I've never seen anything like this." Serrate said with his mouth full. "It's going to take weeks to straighten out the computer sensors. If I didn't know better, I'd say there was some sort of virus in the system."

"Well...is it possible?"

"How would I know? This is...computer business. I've never bothered with it." They chewed some more. "I suppose it is possible." He admitted at last. "Then the question would be, how to get it out. I hope we don't have to replace anything!"

Hollow shuddered at the thought. "We just had these installed."

"Maybe it isn't that Time Lord at all. What if it could have been one of Master's rivals?"

Hollow had been trying not to think of that. He swallowed before speaking-never mix unpleasant words with the taste of good food. "You mean..._him_."

The twins made the sign to avert the particular kind of ill luck caused by bad thoughts aimed by one's enemies.

"Really, _he's_ the only one who could do such a thing."

"But _he_ doesn't know anything about computers. I guarantee you. _He_ doesn't even keep a microwave oven or a thermal roaster! The technology's too 'distilled' to bring out pure flavour!"

"All he needs to do is find someone good with computers, brother. Someone with the cleverness. And _he's_...popular. Can you think of anyone else who would sabotage Master?"

Hollow shuddered, and imitated spitting on the dripping floor. "I can't think of anyone, really. But would _he_ let all the food go to waste?"

"I don't know, but _he_ always swore he could cook _anything_ to a higher art...whilst Master's skill was only in bringing it in." Serrate finished the last bite and held up his fingers spread apart, careful to lick the blood from between.

"Well, the-" Hollow stopped and turned his head to the back of the freezer. The lights were at their worst in the depths. "Did you hear something?"

"No." Serrate did not look up from his afters.

"I thought I did."

Curse it. That means something else is going wrong with the machines, you just watch."

Hollow waited.

Serrate kept licking.

Hollow sighed. "I'll go see what it is."

"Be careful. Might be an icicle getting ready to break off over your head."

"It hasn't been that long since we defrosted these chambers!" Hollow sloshed and waded and kicked his way into the dark, muttering under his breath the whole time.

Serrate leaned back on the floating gurney, and wished for one more snack. That was the problem with being young—you didn't get to enjoy what you ate so much; it went straight to digestion. He didn't feel like dropping his half-frozen feet into the cold water, so he waited where he was. Hollow would take care of it.

Muffled bangs and thumps and metallic clangs made him grin.

"What's that?" Serrate yelled down the darkness, and kicked his heels against the melting slush and muck of the freezers.

"What?" Hollow yelled back.

"What's what?"

"You thought you heard something?"

"Just the compressors, I think. They're confused."

"There's a surprise."

"What?"

Oh, never mind. Come on back!"

"Just a minute. I can barely see! It's all dark lumps on dark lumps! And...beeping things!"

Serrate snorted. "You worry too much." He scolded. His stomach growled. He sighed. Time ticked, and the freezer was still cold and cheerless. He sighed again, kicked his boots, and finally twisted behind his shoulder. There were three chambers nearby, still full. Still waiting on the lackeys to return with the next line of gurneys.

It was bad policy to snack in front of the lowlier workers; they would think they were entitled too. But Serrate was hungry. And when he was hungry, he was snappish.

The Androgum drooled at the thought of that pale, cold meat just a few feet away. Master wouldn't mind if he helped himself to a little to 'taste the quality' so long as he proved he made it a useful activity. His mouth filled with saliva to remember the blood on his tongue.

He hopped down, splashing almost up to his knees. He grumbled again, and struggled to the nearest full chamber. Melting made runnels around the hatch-seams and he batted a layer of clear ice away to tinkle into the swelling pool.

The hatch groaned as he threw his weight against it; he gritted his teeth and heaved. Just as he was about to give up, a shadow crossed over his shoulder and against the dull metal door. The screek of friction and ice and steel set him on edge.

"Come, Hollow!" The apprentice grunted. "Give me a hand. We can have a bit before the next load."

* * *

It was finally awake.

Awake meant consciousness.

And found itself to still be bound in its pitiful form.

Rage clawed its throat. It had learned rage.

It had learned many things from the minds it had absorbed over the centuries.

Or _was_ it the centuries? Was it it longer?

Sometimes it didn't even know that. It never remembered its own form now...those memories were ghostly echoes within its vast consciousness. Odd that a being of pure mind would forget something...but things changed, and time changed all.

But it looked down upon its claws, and remembered using them in the past.

It remembered the warmth of a sun on its fur...a green sun.

The Green Sun that warmed Earth.

It cast out with its senses, looking for anything useful.

There was precious little.

But in the echoes of its mind there was a resonance, and it knew to listen to its senses.

It was the last of its kind. The Locus depended on it to survive.

Survive and spread.

It had to move carefully.

Carefully.

It shuffled in the water, slow and awkward. Ice knocked about its scaly shins and icicles melted off its fur. The organic components fired terrible neurons of pain, but that was unimportant. Bodies were to be used. It reached up with its paw to spin webbing...

...but nothing happened.

The intelligence inhabiting the form remembered: The strange beings had carved the web-organs out of the hands.

A mistake to keep the newer models; fully organic translation meant weaknesses as well as strengths.

It would take time but it could improvise a proper web-gun. It could be fashioned even with delicate parts and these heavy, horned three-digit appendages.

Ice crackled and its sonics beeped softly, the sound echoing in the hard metal chamber. It sounded in all three directions, confusing the alien before it.

It never had time to scream. The head splashed into the water, a dark cloud spreading from the severed tissues.

It picked up the head, seeking the information within the still-malleable brain. A low surge of power and the neurons re-joined their synaptic language, transmitting millions of units in an eyeblink.

So precious little to absorb. It began to toss the corpse aside as a spent cause, but a last flicker in the memory compartment gave a last-second reward for all the trouble.

If it was capable of laughing in this form, it would.

More ice melted; crackled and slid off in a single clear sheet. It shattered glasslike over its matted and stinking fur.

Its fur.

How it would like to use another mind.

It paddled through the rising meltwater. Thin cakes rang as they floated into each other, broke apart at its passage, floated back again in its wake.

The other alien had its back turned foolishly, seeking the end of its greed. The lust for blood radiated off its limited consciousness.

The thing understood hungers and cravings and wants...but it had no patience for the stupidity that birthed short-sighted indulgences.

It moved again.

Serrate's scream never escaped the sealed doors.

* * *

Brasher had finally stopped laughing. It took a while.

"I'm going to regret cooking you up, little one." He wiped his eyes with his free hand, the other carefully wrapped around his most reluctant guest. "Tut, the troubles you give me. All because I follow the difficult path of the artist." He sighed and slung him over his shoulder in a new angle, one that neatly took the Doctor's feet off the floor.

"You really think you can get away with this." The Doctor said icily.

"I already have. Six times. This will make seven."

"But the Time Lords weren't aware of you."

"They still aren't." Brasher spoke carelessly. "Any more than they noticed anyone else going missing in the path of that pesky little pinhole." He puffed his large cheeks out like balloons. "So much destruction with that thing! So much death! So much easy sweepings."

"And you call yourself a fowler." The Doctor goaded. "Scavenger more like!"

"You are trying to anger me." Brasher growled. "It won't work. He thumped the little Time Lord on the back again, and the friendly tap blew all the air from his lungs. "I was like the others once. I feared your people. I was as subservient to the name of Time Lord as much as anyone else!"

"So what happened?" The Doctor struggled to study his surroundings as they passed.

"I ate you." Brasher said simply. "He was already dead, an old one, mostly dry and the vacuum had finished him off. But his flesh was edible...like anything else in this Universe. And I lost my fear. So it was with the next...a young female in purple. And the four that followed. You should learn to keep track of your kind better."

"They're catching up with you. The pinhole has been finished. There are no more accidents for your space-combing. _You're finished, Brasher."_ The Doctor renewed his struggles. Normally he would always come along quietly, choosing to cooperate in order to keep his hands free. But Brasher wasn't about to give him the luxury of that advantage, so there was no sense pretending he wanted to be here. "Soon the Time Lords will come, and you know what they will do in the face of your crimes!"

"It is no crime to live." Brasher scoffed.

"_They are Time Lords!"_ The Doctor bellowed loudly enough to leave him dizzy. "They usually don't care about life, only Time!"

"Ah, I wondered why you ran away from them." Brasher sounded quite satisfied.

"Brasher, for the sake of your people!" The Doctor hammered his fist into the big alien's arm. "Stop this before they include your ship! Your Grig! When the cause is great enough, they will include entire worlds in the judgment of one!"


End file.
